


On the Right Track

by HellMichiganOrWherever



Category: The Young and the Restless
Genre: AU, F/F
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-25
Updated: 2021-02-09
Packaged: 2021-02-27 15:48:45
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 17
Words: 87,695
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22399627
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HellMichiganOrWherever/pseuds/HellMichiganOrWherever
Summary: What if Mariah goes to a gay bar in Chicago, not because she’s gay, OK, but just because it’s convenient, and what if she does that before Tessa ever comes to GC, and she meets a mysterious brunette there?What if that, hmm??Been thinking of writing this for a while but with the show making gay bar references and hinting at Mariah potentially having a drinking problem, it felt like the time!Please be warned that this story includes references to physical and sexual abuse as well as drug use and alcohol abuse and these are quite detailed in places. Avoid if not for you.
Relationships: Mariah Copeland/Tessa Porter
Comments: 181
Kudos: 202





	1. Chapter 1

Mariah isn’t gay, okay?

Okay. 

Right. 

It’s just that she feels like a drink, but not in the hotel bar again, which is all dull decor and bored businessmen, the latter a little too excited to be away from their wives, and not one but two of whom (thankfully at least separately) last night had hit on her as she was just trying to enjoy a quiet glass of wine. 

And the bar is so close to this hotel GC Buzz have booked her into after it had gotten so late, and it’s a cold winter’s night in the Windy City, and Mariah doesn’t want to walk another block or two to the nearest “straight” bar just for the sake of it. _I mean, what would be the point in that?_

_And it’s no big deal._ Mariah is cool with gay people, of course she is, and there will be less chance of anyone making a pass here, right? 

After thirty seconds out in the freezing Chicago night, Mariah’s happy with her decision as she pulls open the door and gets herself off the cold street into what seems like a quiet, pleasant, very rainbow-beflagged venue. There’s two guys dancing to fairly low volume music, two women talking intently in one corner and a few other visitors who seem to be on their own, but it’s not too busy or crowded, and seems the perfect place to get a nice, quiet glass or two of red. 

There’s what looks like a free, comfortable stool up at the bar and Mariah takes it, and orders the second-most expensive glass of wine recommended by the bartender. Not the _most_ expensive; but a nice one. She deserves it. It’s been a long day chasing some incomprehensible story idea of Hilary’s about some GC politician’s Chicago apartment that has possibly been acquired with incorrectly-claimed expenses, or something, and no-one she actually needs to interview about the story seemed to be available, in fact it would be better if she had stayed in GC to try and cover this thing, so it had all been a wild goose chase if ever there was —

“Long day?” 

Mariah turns to see a brunette woman, attractive, a little younger than Mariah herself perhaps, who has settled into a seat a little further down the bar and is... apparently talking to her.

“I get it. Relatable. And it’s cold, right, even for this city. I’d recommend something stronger though, tonight, if you want to warm up a little.” 

Mariah looks at her.

The woman gestures to Mariah’s glass.

Oh, right. 

_It’s not possible that I am being hit on here_ , Mariah thinks. This woman doesn’t seem gay, for a start. I mean, Mariah knows there are all different kinds of gay people, but still. _And she’s absolutely beautiful, so she wouldn’t be hitting on me anyway._ This girl has probably done the exact same thing Mariah herself has — headed to the nearest bar for a nightcap on a cold night like this. Totally understandable.

The woman gestures to the bartender, and suddenly a glass of whiskey each is in front of both Mariah and the mystery woman.

“Cheers,” the woman says, lifting her glass in Mariah’s direction and taking a sip. “You won’t feel the cold after this, I promise.” 

It’s good, strong, liquor, and Mariah feels the blood rush to her head a little as she tries it.

“I’m Tessa,” the woman says.

“Thanks for the drink, Tessa.”

“You’re welcome.” There’s a pause, Tessa taking another sip of her drink before saying, “Do I know you from somewhere?”

Now if this Tessa were a guy, Mariah would certainly think this was a line. One of the corporate types from yesterday had used this one as his opening gambit, too. 

“Don’t think so.”

“TV, maybe...? Daytime...?” Tessa seems to stop and think for a moment. “You on a soap or something?”

Mariah laughs. “Not me.”

“I’m sure I know you.”

“Ah well. I’ve got one of those faces.”

“A great face,” Tessa smiles, and Mariah feels it, then: that little buzz, the butterflies in her stomach, when Tessa looks at her that way. 

_Damn, this is some good whiskey, right?_

“Sure is,” Tessa agrees, and Mariah realises she’s spoken aloud. She’s feeling nervous, all of a sudden, _but no, that’s not the right word._ Something close to it, but not quite that; something more positive. More exciting.

_You know what you’re feeling_ , something at the back of Mariah’s mind, something she herself pushed back there long ago, says. _Those butterflies..._

Don’t be ridiculous, Mariah tells herself, but she’s thinking suddenly, absurdly, of that spontaneous kiss she planted on Summer that one time. Of the softness of Summer’s lips against her own, yielding a little against hers, not resisting. Of how for a crazy moment she thought Summer would even kiss her back, before Mariah herself was the one to pull away. And she’s thinking of how absolutely crazy that spoilt, rich girl drives her. Of how irrationally furious she gets with Summer Newman. Almost without any real explanation... 

_Why is that, Mariah?_

“You didn’t tell me your name.”

For a brief moment, Mariah somehow thinks of saying “Cassie.” Why? Does she feel like she wants to be someone else tonight? 

But she stops herself before she gives this woman a fake name. Her dead sister’s name. 

“You’re right, I didn’t.” 

Tessa smiles again and lifts her glass. “Ah, I see.” She shrugs. “I guess it’s not my night.”

_What if... what if she_ is _hitting on me?_

“I’m not gay,” Mariah says.

“Good to know,” Tessa says evenly. 

“I just came in here for a drink, that was really my primary motivation, it just so happens that this is an LGBT establishment. I have gay friends, of course, which sounds like something you just say, doesn’t it, you know, some of my best friends are gay! But now actually that I think about it, maybe I don’t have any particularly _close_ gay friends, but then again I live in Genoa City, you know, it’s all about the straight people and their drama most of the time. But, why I’m here, the fact is, the hotel I’m staying in for work is so close, you see, and I didn’t want to walk any further, and it’s so cold tonight, but you’re totally right in fact that this whiskey is warming, so thank you for that recommendation.”

The bartender looks up from the glass she is drying. For a moment, the only sound is the squeak of cloth against glass, and the low decibel Lady Gaga in the background. 

“I don’t know why I babbled all that,” Mariah says quietly, at last.

“It was great. A very efficient walk-through,” Tessa says. “But I feel kinda like I’ve just read your entire journal of your most private innermost thoughts. So let me even this out. I just ran into my ex at this dumb party, which I didn’t even want to go to in the first place, you know when you just know it’s going to be a bad idea and you should stay home and watch cable but you get pressured into it? And so, we get there and Alex is like, stumbling around the place, clearly on more than just tequila or, you know, high spirits, and I was like, I don’t even want to deal with this right now, I mean, everyone likes to party, right, now and then, but you know, you can take things too far, this was part of the reason we broke up in the first place. So I was like forget it, I’m out of here, but then, seeing as I was out already, I thought I wouldn’t just go straight home, so I wound up here.”

“Were you and your ex together a long time?” Mariah asks, draining the last of the whiskey and buying herself and Tessa another. It’s polite to buy someone a drink who has bought one for you, that’s all.

“Oh you know, six months. But she was going through a lot of stuff and not really in the best place to be in a relationship.”

Mariah knows it shouldn’t, of course; she’s in a gay bar, after all, and it’s of course the case that “Alex” as a name could be Alexandra, Alexis, Alexa or just an Alex who is a girl, but the word “ _she_ ”jumps right out and grabs at her. So this woman _is_ gay or lesbian or bisexual or something. 

Or maybe ‘no labels’, that’s how people are these days, right? But she’s been with a woman. Maybe with _women_ , plural? 

“I’ve never been with a woman,” Mariah says. “I mean, there was that time I kissed Summer, but—”

“Lucky Summer.” 

Now, that’s blatant. Ok, so I _am_ being hit on? Mariah thinks. Really? 

Something... fizzing, crackling, simmering, cooking-type words? Something is happening. Mariah can feel it now, like flames licking around a fireplace or... she can’t think how to express it, even to herself, can’t find the words.

Maybe she doesn’t want to find them. 

“I mean, it was at the coffee shop, in front of a bunch of people, and I was just saying thank you, you know, it wasn’t like, some whole Fried Green Tomatoes deal or anything.”

“Love that movie.”

“It’s my favorite,” Mariah says immediately, and she hopes she doesn’t blush — she hates when she does that. She likes strong female characters and a good story, okay?? 

Anyway, it’s not like the film actually is about a lesbian relationship. They toned down the book quite a bit in that regard. 

Yes, Mariah read the book. She likes to read now and then, okay??? 

“So what do you do?”

“Me, I’m a... well. A reporter, sort of.” Mariah takes another sip of whiskey. 

“Wow, that is seriously cool.” 

“I mean, I’m not exactly Woodward or Bernstein, kind of more, in the gossipy, um, sphere, I guess... What about you?”

“Oh, this and that. I don’t think I have what you’d call a career. Not yet.”

“Give yourself time,” Mariah says. “It can take a while to figure out what you want to do with your life. Well, it did for me. God, I sound forty years old, sorry. I’m not forty.”

“I see, so the gay bar thing isn’t a mid-life crisis...” 

There’s a mischievous smile from Tessa that Mariah can’t even begin to protest against. 

“Well, I know what I want to do,” Tessa saves Mariah by going back to discussing careers again. “But, it’s competitive as hell, and honestly, I don’t even know if I’m good enough.”

Then, there’s a shout from somewhere on the other side of the bar.

“Porter, you’re up!”

“That’s my cue,” Tessa says, glancing down at the whiskey and deciding better of finishing it. “Best not.” And taps her throat, a little mysteriously. 

And then she’s gone. 

Probably never see her again, Mariah thinks, feeling a sudden strange sort of grief for a woman she’s known for literally five minutes. 

And then the next moment there’s the sound of a microphone being switched on, some scattered applause, and Tessa is up on a small stage at the back of the room that Mariah hadn’t noticed before, and she’s holding a guitar and looking out across the bar. 

“Hey everybody. Hope you’re all having a great night. Mine personally, has taken a turn for the better, after a shaky start. So this is a song I wrote about the heartbreak of _not_ being in love. Hope you like it.”

Tessa’s gaze meets her own and Mariah feels herself smile. Tessa smiles back and then starts to play, and sing, and from the first note, Mariah finds herself captivated. Tessa’s voice is... exquisite. Truly beautiful, with a tone Mariah isn’t sure she’s ever heard before. 

The lyrics of the song are about a relationship that has gone wrong, but one the singer isn’t even sure she should have been in to begin with, and something in it speaks to Mariah, makes her think of her misguided fling with Kevin, for example, and basically every other romance that’s failed so terribly over the years. Did any of them really ever start from the right place?

It’s a strong, relatable song. Tessa somehow makes even a couple of lines about how she’s a terrible cook sound good. The whole thing gets a positive reaction from the crowd. When Tessa finishes, the applause the room gives her is warm, heartfelt. 

At least, Mariah knows the clapping she’s doing is. This girl is truly talented.

“You were fantastic,” Mariah tells Tessa when she returns to the bar.

“You think? Thank you.”

“You should definitely be a professional.”

“Have I got my first fan?” Tessa looks at her.

“Oh, I’m sure I’m not your first.”

_What the hell. Am_ I _hitting on her now?_

“Mariah,” Mariah says, because she has to say something, quickly, so that she just stops staring right back at Tessa. “That’s my name.”

“Good to meet you, Mariah.”

Tessa extends her hand for Mariah to shake it. Her touch, when their fingers meet, at once sends a tremble down Mariah’s spine. 

Not that she is gay, or even remotely interested in women, nor did she just hit on this Tessa girl, and it’s not like she thinks about that kiss with Summer every single day, or wonders why she did it.

_You know why._

“One for the road?” Tessa says.

“I don’t know why people say that. It sounds irresponsible, don’t you think?”

_Babble, babble._

”But I’m not driving, so why not,” Mariah says.

One last drink and back to the hotel and see what’s on TV before bed, she tells herself. 

Somehow that one last drink becomes two or three. Mariah thinks she mentions Kevin. She knows she mentions Summer again. Tessa hints at some family issues. Mariah alludes to her own. She doesn’t mention the cult, or Cassie, or that she had pretended to be her dead sister, but she tells Tessa she’s only in the last few years got to know her birth mother, after a difficult start to their relationship, and how glad she is that she did. 

And then somehow, they are up on the dance floor where the same two guys have been valiantly holding down the fort for the last couple of hours, and suddenly these guys are their new best friends. There’s requests to the DJ, and a round of shots (tequila? Ugh! Mariah thinks, downing it quickly so she doesn’t taste it too much) and then Tessa tells her the bartender, who is confusingly called Maria, is a good friend and invited her to play the one song, kind of a little unofficially, but just to give her more experience, because music is absolutely what she wants to do with her life. 

“You should do it,” Mariah tells her. “You should do what you feel.”

“Should I?” Tessa asks, looking into Mariah’s eyes with an intensity that feels like it’s turned the music volume down to zero, and taken everyone else out of the room, and which leaves Mariah’s heart pounding. 

“I... uh... Ladies’ room,” Mariah says, and dashes off to the sanctuary of a bleak strip light and an unflattering mirror, to the dull thud of music from the bar in the background, to cold water splashed onto her face, to telling herself that she _is_ drunk but she _isn’t_ gay. 

“We’ve all been there, honey,” Maria the bartender tells her with a friendly pat on the back as she walks past.

“Great, so the inner monologue is... _out there_ again,” Mariah says to her twin in the mirror.

She opens the bathroom door back into the bar to see Tessa standing there.

“You were a while, so I just came to check you were OK. Was it that last tequila? Want me to walk you back to your hotel?”

It’s not said as a come-on; the tone is friendly and helpful, in fact. Tessa’s genuinely a little concerned, and Mariah knows this, and she knows she herself isn’t gay. But for some reason, the very straight Mariah Copeland who isn’t being hit on right this moment, decides, all the same, to take the initiative. Maybe it was that last tequila.

_You know it isn’t._

Mariah steps forward, into the unknown. She pushes Tessa gently but firmly against the wall of the corridor they’re standing in, and kisses her.

It’s tentative at first. _Maybe Tessa doesn’t want_ — 

But Tessa welcomes the kiss, responds. She lets Mariah sets the tone and pace, but is kissing her right back. 

_I’m kissing a woman_ , Mariah thinks, and then she feels as though she is being lifted off her feet, and it isn’t just the height difference in play — this kiss is like nothing Mariah has ever felt before. Passionate, although they only met that night. Deep and meant, even though they don’t know each other. It feels incredibly right, and good, Tessa’s lips so soft, and her tongue so delicate, and her touch so good and, and... 

So this is why people make a big deal of kissing someone, Mariah thinks. It can feel like _this_.

Tessa’s hands in Mariah’s hair. Mariah’s hands... well... places... that she’s never put them on a woman before, put it that way. In the back of a bar in Chicago on a cold winter’s night. _I don’t know what I’m doing but I love it,_ Mariah thinks. She and Tessa are pressed close to one another, but somehow, Mariah still feels, at one and the same time, an incredible closeness and as though she is reaching, searching for this other woman all the while.

“Good for you!” one of the guys from the dance floor tells them, as he staggers past. “That goddamn tequila...” 

And then she and Tessa are laughing against each other, and Tessa lays a gentle kiss on Mariah’s smiling mouth. 

“I’m sorry I... sorry for... just, er... I’ve never done anything like that... I mean, I’ve kissed people, but you know, men. Primarily.”

“It’s ok.”

“I shouldn’t have just...”

“Do I seem like I’m complaining?” Tessa’s hands are around Mariah’s waist, and now she pulls her in a little closer.

“Walk me back to my hotel,” Mariah finds herself saying. 

_To be continued_


	2. Chapter 2

When they get outside, the moon is high and bright above them, and it’s snowed, quite a lot. Mariah is in heels. Flimsy-looking ones, to boot. 

“Quite the footwear choice for this city, this season,” Tessa observes.

“You don’t like?” Mariah lifts a foot to show off one shoe, and nearly tumbles headfirst onto the sidewalk, saved only by Tessa’s hand quickly slipped around her waist.

Tessa is glad her reflexes are relatively intact, even after the bucketload of alcohol she had at the bar... _jeez_. Tessa had been sure that she’d be able to drink Mariah under the table, but as a matter of fact, she might just have met her match. Tessa makes a mental note never to take this girl on in a drinking contest.

“My hero...” Mariah smiles at her and places her hand over Tessa’s own. “Heroine. Let’s see. Your hobbies include, playing guitar, and saving women on the treacherous streets of Chicago.”

“Only the very beautiful ones.”

“You... think I’m beautiful?” Mariah looks at her.

Tessa had been thinking the night was going to be a write-off. She had a slot for precisely one song at Sanctuary Bar, but dropping in at that party earlier had been a mistake. Alex was not only her ex but her... what. Co-conspirator? Potential co-defendant? Alex was engaged in a long-running scam of some guy with a shop over in Jewelers Row; and Tessa had helped a few times by pretending to be a “friend” who was interested in acquiring diamonds or whatever Alex had had her doing. But Alex had gone too far, as usual... Tessa had ended the relationship, and didn’t want to run into her again unless she had to. 

She had forgotten all about Alex, however, the moment a certain redhead walked into the bar. 

“Mariah... please. You’re completely gorgeous. Confirmed by the evidence of all five of my senses.”

Mariah blushes, and it’s immediately one of Tessa’s favorite things, ever.

“Let’s get you back to your hotel,” Tessa says, feeling the chill now they’ve been standing around outside for the best part of a minute. “It’s nearly an entire block in... well, that’s gotta be at least three inches of snow.”

“Right. And you’re telling me only half of this expedition party is properly equipped.”

Mariah smiles at her, a truly divine smile that sends Tessa’s pulse racing almost as fast as their kiss had. 

Ok, another favorite thing right off the bat. 

_ It really isn’t a good time to start really liking a girl you just met, Porter.  _

“I can’t believe you don’t like my shoes,” Mariah says, as they start walking. Slowly. Because of Mariah’s shoes. 

“I didn’t say that. But you’ve got to admit, they’re not exactly practical.”

Mariah makes a noise that sounds like “Psshaaw.” “Fashion isn’t always practical, Tess.” 

Personally, Tessa has always chosen shoes that meant she could get out of a place in a hurry. Like that last day at home, when she had grabbed the bag she’d packed and stashed days before, for when she might need to get out quickly, and when the day came, earlier then expected, she threw on the boots she’s wearing now, got out of the front door and ran for the bus at the end of the street and just about made it. Didn’t look back then. Tries not to look back now.

And it hadn’t been the last place she had to get out of fast, either. Maybe Mariah’s never had to run away from somewhere, Tessa thinks, but then again, something tells her that isn’t true.

Maybe this girl just likes ridiculous shoes.

“Nearly there.”

“Thank goodness. This must be how Roald Amundsen felt,” Mariah says.

“The _who_ now?”

“The guy who led the first expedition to the South Pole. When he realised he was almost, ya know, at the Pole.” She pauses. “But then again, he still had to go the whole way back again.”

There’s something about the combination of Mariah’s nerdy fact knowledge, and her delivery, that has Tessa laughing.

Damn, when did anyone last make her smile, and laugh, like this?

_Real bad timing, Tessa._ This is just some fun for tonight. She doesn’t even live in Chicago, and she’ll be gone in the morning. _Just for tonight._ Don’t go thinking _anything else_.

“So...” Mariah says, in the hotel lobby. “You want to, um... you know, I’m not very good at this...”

“You seem pretty good to me,” Tessa tells her.

“I have a room, I mean, it’s not a suite or anything. But, um... wanna see it?”

“Who needs a suite?” Tessa shrugs. “All you need is one cozy room. Yes, I would love to see this room.”

“Oh, OK. Then let’s, er... go there,” Mariah says, hitting the elevator button.

They are moving to each other, getting wrapped up in each other again, the moment the elevator starts moving up.

“How did I do?”

“On the asking me up? It was very smooth.”

“Liar. But it’s alright.” Mariah says. “I’ll forgive someone who is so hot... I mean literally,  extremely warm. Damn. You got an electric heater under that coat?”

Tessa smiles. “I personally tend to feel the cold. But I do like to receive compliments on my temperature.”

When they kiss again, Tessa knows she’s in trouble. For sure. The best kind, but still. Mariah said she hadn’t been with a woman before, and Tessa wonders if that is true; because Mariah doesn’t kiss like she’s in any way uncertain, like she’s experimenting or like she doesn’t know what she’s doing... Mariah’s kiss feels very, very meant. And more than that; like it really does mean something.

_ Uh-oh. _

It’s the alcohol, it’s seeing Alex. It’s the full moon,  I mean maybe it’s more three-quarters right now but it’s getting there. _Don’t be an idiot, Tessa_ , you met this girl a couple hours ago in a bar. You’ll have a good time tonight and probably never see her again.

But damn, if she isn’t gorgeous. And hell, if her kiss isn’t everything...

“Not exactly the Four Seasons, huh?” Mariah says, as they step into her hotel room. “My work booked me in here.”

Tessa stands her guitar up against the wall carefully and looks around. The room is warm, clean, has a comfortable-looking double bed and a decent view. Looks like paradise from where Tessa’s standing.

“It’s a lot nicer than my place,” is what Tessa tells Mariah.

She isn’t lying.

The Four Seasons, huh? Tessa’s only experience in a five-star hotel has been a brief stint waiting tables until she was fired for mixing up orders on account of too much daydreaming about song lyrics. That, and refusing to sleep with her boss. Her instant read of Mariah is that she is comfortable in life: not rich, exactly, but hardly poor. Their talk in the bar earlier had suggested a tougher childhood than Tessa would have guessed, but she doesn’t know all the details. It seems like later life has been a little kinder to Mariah, though; she doesn’t act like someone who is struggling now.

Tessa can’t help doing this. Reading people. Even incredibly beautiful women who invite her back to their hotel rooms. Maybe one day she will change. Maybe one day she will have a reason to.

Right now, there’s something she does have to say; one right thing she should do.

“We don’t have to do anything, you know.”

“What?” Mariah looks at her.

“We can just talk, or whatever.”

“You want to just talk?”

They gaze into each other’s eyes for a bit longer than is reasonable. If this was a TV show, this bit would need to be cut down a little.

“No, Mariah.” Tessa says, at last, closing the gap between them and kissing Mariah’s lips softly. “I don’t want to “just talk”. But... you said this was new for you. And you know, all the whiskey and the tequila... And I.. I am just saying... I’m not... expecting anything.”

Mariah nods her head. “That’s really lovely,” Mariah says. “Really. Lovely. I love that.” She kisses Tessa. “But I want you.”

Tessa feels her breath hitch.

“I wanted you the moment I saw you,” Tessatells Mariah.

Once again, no word of a lie.

“Me?”

“You.”

“You’re like, the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen,” Mariah says.

“Now I  know you’re drunk.”

“I’m not! Ok, yeah, I am a  little drunk. But I have eyes. And you know, the other sense things. Your voice, I mean, is, it’s just... wow.”

“I’m going to put your review on my posters. Mariah from Genoa City says, ‘wow.’”

“Oh she does,” Mariah says. “She does... say... wow...”

It’s the last thing either of them says before they make it to the bed.  


~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Mariah likes to thinks of herself as a woman of the world. She’s seen some things, done some things. She grew up in a cult. There was, of course, that time she pretended to be her dead twin sister. She had at one point tried to seduce her mother’s husband — well, no, now is not the time to think about that, if there ever is a time to think about that. But for all her life experience, her sexual experiences have so far only ever been with men. And you know, sure, just like any heterosexual woman — _right?_ —  there have been times when she’s wondered, been a little curious, perhaps, what going to bed with a woman would be like. 

But she realises, as clothes begin to be discarded, that she isn’t thinking of what it will be like to sleep with a  _ woman, _not in that sense. Instead, she’s thinking of what it will be like to be with  _ Tessa, _specifically her, this crazy-talented singer, who looks and sounds stunning, and who for some reason is interested in spending the night with Mariah. 

“What do you mean, for some reason?” Tessa murmurs against her mouth. “I got to tell you that you’re gorgeous again?”

“Yeah, but... look at you. Just look at you,” Mariah says, and she’s pretty sure she even gasps a little at what Tessa looks like underneath the now removed, several layers of winter clothing that are now scattered around the hotel room. The woman is incredible. “I don’t even want to think what your gym routine must be like.”

Tessa laughs, runs her fingers along Mariah’s collarbone in a way that makes Mariah tremble, and kisses her. And there’s that feeling again that Mariah has, that this kiss isn’t just a kiss, that she’s several miles above herself? Doesn’t even make sense, but... That she’s standing on the top of a cliff and not looking down in fear, but feeling like she could take a step off and realise she can fly. There’s no drink, no drug — not that Mariah has too much experience of drugs, but still, she’s sure she’s right — that could feel like this, like the rightness of this kiss, at once taking her breath away, and also feeling like an oxygen supply. This kiss is making her wet, now, she knows she is pooling down there, and she’s turned on in a way she can’t ever previously remember experiencing — does that mean, then... she’s not gay, but...  _ does it even matter if she is _ _?_ Maybe it doesn’t, if this is how it feels to be gay, or bi —  _ OK Mariah _ , that voice at the back of her mind says,  _name a guy who got you this wet, go on_ , _and we will go with “bi”_ — listen, Keanu Reeves is still looking great for his age —  _ Keanu doesn’t count, he is a perfect angel, everyone loves Keanu, even lesbians, you lesbian _ — and Tessa’s kiss, her kiss, over and over, her touch, her lips, her tongue, so good, Mariah needs more, can’t get enough of her, and suddenly realises she wants and needs the control in this whole thing, and Tessa lets her have it, responds to her naturally and quickly, is so gentle, pliant but in this quietly powerful way. Mariah’s never had a lover like this before.

_Is it because she is a woman or because she is Tessa?_ Mariah doesn’t know, but either way, she is the one moving on top and beginning to explore Tessa’s body with her hands and even her mouth, not really knowing what she is doing, but somehow not feeling any doubt.

“You’re sure?” Tessa asks her. “We don’t have to...”

“I don’t seem sure to you?” Mariah makes a downward movement with her head to signal their respective positions.

“I mean honestly, you really do. It’s just. I always like to ask.”

Mariah will find out later one reason why Tessa is always asking and checking so much that sex is wanted, but tonight she just finds it very sweet. She assures her she is very sure, and kisses her way down Tessa’s body, extends her tongue to lick each of Tessa’s perfect nipples, presses kisses firmly against her taut stomach. She must do, like, fifty sit-ups a day.

“Only twenty,” Tessa says. “Who has time for fifty? _Oh God, Mariah —_ “

Mariah didn’t even actively decide to taste Tessa. She just did it, and the expressions that are crossing Tessa’s face very quickly, one after the other, are most decidedly a sight to behold. And now her mouth is moving against Tessa more intently.

“Mariah, Jesus, Mary and Joseph —“

Ah yes. The holy... quadrilateral?

“You taste so good... Am I doing this right?”

“Fuck — oh — fuckkkk...”

Mariah decides to take that as a yes. And finally shuts up talking so she can concentrate on moving her mouth against Tessa, drinking her in. At first, she just enjoys the sensation of what she is doing, but after a little while, she realises her purpose, and concentrates on Tessa’s clit, but varied with other parts of Tessa here, caressing in a pattern, now not a pattern, and now a pattern again, and feeling Tessa’s hips begin to move, Tessa’s hands in her hair. There are more of what sound like quite Catholic exclamations from Tessa’s mouth, an increased movement of Tessa’s hips and Mariah is kissing, licking, caressing, tasting Tessa all at once, feeling the pressure build, the thrilling pleasure of what she is doing to, for, the other woman, the delight of it. It’s delicious, Tessa is delicious, _did making love to someone ever feel this good?_ And Tessa’s head is thrown back, she looks so beautiful, and she is crying out Mariah’s name when she finally comes in Mariah’s mouth, hard and fast and strong, Mariah enraptured to the extreme to have the taste of Tessa all over her lips, and her tongue, and yeah, somehow her nose too. Tessa’s legs are trembling and she is gesturing to her, inviting Mariah back up the bed, for Mariah to hold her.

“Mariah.”

“You know, the way you’re using it, you’re gonna wear my name out.”

“You... you...” is all Tessa can say. Mariah feels Tessa’s legs still shaking.

“So, I did it right?”

Tessa nods.

“I’m new at this, so.”

Tessa raises her eyebrows to suggest she now doubts Mariah is _new at this_.

“I just, er... went with my instincts, I guess.”

“Good instincts,” Tessa manages. She swings a leg over Mariah. “Don’t go anywhere. Just gimme a second.”

Mariah kisses Tessa’s forehead, lies back. The bathroom door is open, and she can see a little bit of herself in the bathroom mirror, but this time she doesn’t bother to tell herself she isn’t gay. Not that her realisation is a settled one; she will waver on this, at least when it comes to saying it out loud. Even after tonight, and what happens later, it will take her some time to accept that when women, one woman in particular, make you feel this way, so thrilled and yet so comfortable, so sure of yourself and what you are doing that sex is no longer ever a battle with, or over, yourself, or a chore, or a regret that you know you’re going to have before you even do it, but instead something joyous, life-affirming, restorative, and deeply right — when sex, which you’ve never thought was really so important or such a big deal, turns out, with the right person, to be  _ so _ important, and  _ such _ a big deal — despite all this, Mariah will have a journey of self-reflection before she ever says the truth to anyone, even Tessa. She’ll tell Tessa, and the world, that she loves her, before she will say that she is gay.

But she won’t say either of these things tonight.

What she  will do is wait for Tessa to be able to move again, and as she stirs, take Tessa’s hand and place it between her own legs.

“You feel that?”

“I feel that,” Tessa confirms, in a low voice.

Mariah can feel herself: dripping wet and ready.  _Isn’t that something_.

“You’ve got me like this.”

“Me?”

”You.  Just talk, huh? Well how about... you just fuck me?”

This is not a joke, and neither of them are laughing.

“Yes... ma’am...” Tessa murmurs, getting right to it.

Tessa is, Mariah realises immediately, a naturally thoughtful lover. She’s gentle, careful. Not rough, doesn’t push anything. Beautifully considerate. When she slips her fingers inside, she does so delicately, despite the fact Mariah has implored Tessa to fuck her. But actually, it’s really nice and right that she does, because it’s Tessa, it’s who she is, and it lets Mariah be who she is too. Because Mariah loves this, that Tessa is a sweetheart in bed. She isn’t sure what she expected, but not this level of natural gentleness. It’s delightful.

But she needs more tonight. And so asks Tessa for more and they both enjoy and value Mariah asking. Mariah asks for harder. Yeah, rougher, too. That’s what Mariah needs. Not every time. She rarely ever asked men for this. Hardly ever _wanted_ to ask men for this.

She feels she can, tonight. Feels she must. It’s there from this first night, the natural connection, the understanding but also the ability to talk. To ask for things. Mariah didn’t know, until tonight, that sex doesn’t in fact have a set order or pattern, or even rules other than both of you wanting it. Mariah is beginning to realise that she has always thought of sexual acts really as things you do because they’re done, and she’s not ever considered that it’s because you actually want or enjoy them. She’s not thought that you don’t have to miss out on anything, either. She didn’t know sex could be anything that she and her lover liked and wanted. Which sounds absurd, really.

Mariah feels very stupid.

Mariah feels extremely empowered. 

“Like that,” Mariah says. “Yes. Yessss,” she hisses, as Tessa slides fingers in and out of her with the intensity that Mariah has requested of her, and touches Mariah’s clit at the same time — with her thumb, Mariah realises.  _ Hey, this lesbian sex thing is smart . Maybe Mariah should be gay more often...  _

“You feel so good,” Tessa is saying. “So good...”

Tessa’s body, her manner, are soft, but her fingers are strong, if must be all that guitar-playing, and she’s good, oh,  fuck! — so very, very good with her hands. 

Mariah doesn’t always climax. Well, yes, on her own, usually she does, but not always with guys. But she knows she’s going to, from the second Tessa touches her, and maybe she knew even before that, in the bar. When they kissed. Maybe before they kissed. Maybe that’s why she kissed Tessa, why she asked her back to the hotel, although it wasn’t the only reason. _Orgasms aren’t everything_ , Mariah had always thought, which whilst always true in some ways, will nevertheless seem an amusingly quaint notion later on.

Tessa is moving her fingers in and out just how Mariah wants and needs it and Mariah loves it, pushes her body against Tessa’s hand. It’s so necessary. So desired. 

“God, yes. Give it to me,” Mariah tells her. It’s heaven every time Tessa’s fingers enter her, it’s something higher than heaven when they’re deep inside her, it’s almost sad when Tessa slides out of her, but it has to happen so that Tessa can slide into her again. 

She tells Tessa she’s going to come, because she feels the need to share. It’s a climax that has started somewhere deep inside her, and is working its way up slowly to the surface, but it is inevitable, beautifully so. Mariah enjoys that: the inevitability of it. No need to search for it, no need to pick the right fantasy in order to get off. She only needs what’s happening right here and now, she only needs this sensuous, gorgeous, perfect woman fucking her so gloriously the way Mariah asked her to.

Mariah’s climax arrives as a mind-exploding, life-altering sensation that is also a very real physical act. She comes hard, fast, her hips bucking; she comes all over Tessa’s hand, and she keeps coming for longer than she ever has before. Half-drenches the bed.

“You’re beautiful, you’re beautiful,” Tessa is saying, and then she surprises Mariah by moving down the bed, putting her mouth on Mariah and teasing out another climax, a third, with her tongue, even though Mariah could have sworn she had no more to have. She’s the one wearing out Tessa’s name by the third time.

No-one’s ever made love to her like this before, Mariah is sure. So perfectly, with so much care and appreciation for her, not to mention, well, it must be said, such a degree of sheer technical skill... Tessa’s tongue glides over her, into her, she somehow has a move where she works on Mariah’s clit in the same stroke as putting the tip of her tongue inside her... Mariah’s never known anything like this. Ever.

They lie together in post-orgasmic bliss, a seeming glow all around them as they hold each other, Tessa’s head on Mariah’s shoulder. Tessa kisses Mariah’s chest.

Mariah is exhausted and spent, but satisfied, more satisfied than she can ever remember feeling. Perhaps truly satisfied, in bed, or perhaps at all, for the first time in her life.

“Wow,” Tessa says, after a time.

“Hey, that’s my line,” Mariah murmurs, as she drifts off to sleep.

_To be continued._


	3. Chapter 3

Tessa wakes early, much earlier than usual, with a dry mouth and a gentle banging in her head; to steel-grey sky through the not-quite-closed curtains. It’s still night-time; the clock next to the bed says 4:42am, but downtown Chicago is like the center of every other big city, and never fully dark.

She doesn’t know where she is for a few moments. Certainly not at that place over at McLinton Street where’s been sleeping the last few nights, since her car got impounded for non-payment of parking violations. That hovel, recommended by an acquaintance of an acquaintance, and accessible only via a not-fully-boarded up window at the back of the building, is freezing cold, certainly doesn’t have a comfortable bed, and _absolutely_ doesn’t come furnished with a gorgeous redhead wrapped around you in the morning. The redhead in question is sleeping soundly and peacefully, one arm draped over Tessa’s body and the other thrown above her own head. 

The night comes back to Tessa all at once — not in mere waves, but in an overpowering tidal rush. How she had been sure the night would be a write-off, and hitting the bar. The beautiful woman walking through the door and into her life, and Tessa knowing she had to talk to her, so sure she would be shot down pretty quickly _(surely a woman like this has someone already?)_ but wanting to connect all the same. And then the drinking, the slight dreamy haze settling in, singing her new song, the applause, more drinking. Talking. Feeling something flow between them, not just the conversation but an understanding too. That buzzy feeling in her stomach. Thinking about kissing Mariah, wondering if she should.

And then, Mariah kissing her instead. The taste of her mouth, and the feel of her surprisingly soft, delicate hands in the small of Tessa’s back. Mariah asking Tessa to walk her back to the hotel. The cold street, the snow on the ground. The elevator. The guy who had gotten in the lift and seen them kissing and said something crass, had he? — and Mariah had annihilated him with her reply. Tessa can’t remember what Mariah said, exactly; only that it was fierce, cutting, and perfect… Just like Mariah… Tessa already a little in awe of this woman for more than just her looks: her ready wit and fearlessness, too…

And speaking of perfect, and being in awe, the stunning ivory of Mariah’s skin, once they were close against one another, Tessa gasping a little, she knew, at how beautiful Mariah was, _everywhere_. Expected and yet unexpected. And Mariah’s soft hands on Tessa’s body, no clothes in the way now, and her self-assurance, her poise… How Mariah hadn’t hesitated or doubted for a moment, and what was more, the dynamic between them immediately so clear and true and right, the immediate understanding between them, of Mariah assuming the control and Tessa giving it over to her freely and happily, even joyously.

The taste of Tessa herself that was on Mariah’s lips when Mariah kissed her again… after she had made love to her.

It’s dizzying, overwhelming, and Tessa is glad, now, she is lying down, when she comes to think over how the evening ended — how Mariah had wanted to be _taken_ ; had, truth be told, implored Tessa to be a little raw and rough. Tessa had built up to it carefully, not rushed; wanted to give Mariah everything she wanted and asked for, suddenly pleasing Mariah was her number one task in life — but Tessa also really wanted to be sure that Mariah meant it. How Mariah had both insisted and reassured.

How “harder,” and “yes” sounded, from Mariah’s lips. The beautiful arch of Mariah’s back when she came hard over Tessa’s hands. How Tessa had moved to drink her in afterwards, couldn’t help herself, felt Mariah’s surprise at coming again, and again, Tessa delighted that she could do this for her, give her something special, make this _completely incredible_ woman feel this good.

Above all, Tessa is now conscious of, awakened to, the intimacy created by Mariah’s immediate and full physical trust, in her, in Tessa. _She’s trusting_ me _, of all people,_ Tessa thinks, _with herself._ Right from the beginning, making love to Mariah brings about a closeness Tessa can’t remember having with anyone, and she met this girl _last night_.

_“Making love??” Do you hear yourself, Porter?? You met the girl in a bar. Last night, for God’s sake. Don’t go catching feelings or anything._

But… but…

_So you had a good time in bed, for once. So what?_

So _WHAT_? So, _everything_. Tessa knows, at once, that her life is different, now, somehow. Mariah’s heat and passion has seared into Tessa in some way. Marked her. For good.

 _It’s just sex_ , Tessa tries to tells herself, but it’s too late. She already has a new feeling: that it really _isn’t._ That it is more than sex and what’s more, it’s sex that finally means something.

_She won’t want you. Why would a woman like this want you?_

This is the thought that works, that takes Tessa down quite a few hundred notches from her high. That’s it, there’s the truth. So Tessa has finally met someone she’s really into, but no way is Mariah going to feel the same way. Of course she isn’t! _Be logical here._ Mariah’s had her little lesbian experience in the big city and she will be back to that town, what’s it called, later today. She’s probably got a boyfriend. Maybe even a husband. _Surely a woman like this has someone special in her life._ It would be naïve to think otherwise. Tessa’s many things; but a delicate flower, she is not.

 _That’s it,_ Tessa thinks, _that’s the answer_. And, feeling something similar to, but not quite the same as, reassured, she goes back to sleep.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Mariah wakes late, much later than usual, with an urgent need for the bathroom, and the taste of whiskey, and something else…? in the back of her throat. Tequila? No…

The clock by the bed says 8:48am. She wonders where she is, in her first few waking seconds. She knows at least she is not back at the ranch, where Sharon likes to turn the air conditioning up even in winter, Mariah’s bed is more luxurious than this simple, functional standard hotel model, and also where she can definitely, honestly say she’s never managed to wake up next to probably the most stunning woman she’s ever seen in her life.

Tessa’s legs are wrapped up in her own, and one arm is around Mariah’s own waist. Mariah thinks of Tessa saving her from falling over… where was that.. outside somewhere? Tessa’s murmuring something unintelligible in her sleep… song lyrics? Mariah espies the guitar in the corner, recollects seeing Tessa up on stage last night. She was good, more than good. Oh yes. That’s right. Mariah has slept with a musician. That’s pretty cool.

A _female_ musician.

That’s pretty… _let’s face it, something else…_

It hits her, full force, everything she did with Tessa last night, and it’s a tsunami of remembered, evoked, vision, touch, taste, scent, and sound… _all five of her senses._ That sounded familiar, somehow… The craziness of kissing Tessa in the bar. The madness of bringing her back here, telling herself she was still not sure if she was going to do anything _(liar!)_ and then wanting Tessa so badly she thought she might be heartbroken if the girl left without them getting to go to bed together… _which is really insane, Mariah, you don’t even know her_ …

And then how gorgeous Tessa was in the flesh. She has a perfect body, she’s gorgeous everywhere. Mariah loves touching her, loves tasting her, recollects and savors again her delight in bringing another woman, _no, this woman,_ to such great pleasure.

Then she thinks of the release, relief, and _sheer ecstasy_ when Tessa made her come. Over. And over.

_Name a guy who ever made you feel like that._

“Mariah?”, Tessa says, rubbing her eyes in a way that is somehow both adorable and…

 _What ridiculousness do I mean,_ Mariah thinks. “ _Hot”? I think she’s hot when she regains consciousness in the morning after taking her daily rest?_

 _Firstly, you are absurd, Mariah Copeland and secondly, yes._ Tessa makes waking up look sexy. Her existence is hot. Tessa, living, breathing, walking around on Planet Earth? Incredible. Iconic. Glorious. 

“Hey”, is what Mariah says.

And: “Excuse me, but I really need to go to the bathroom.”

 _Why am I always saying I am going to the bathroom?? She’s going to think I have a kidney infection or a bladder problem. Then again, if you think about it, I am only going a normal amount in fact… but… why have I always got to goddamn_ announce _it?_

Mariah realizes it’s Tessa she can still taste, as she brushes her teeth. And feels a little weak at the knees _(so that’s a real thing, huh)_ as she realizes she can still feel Tessa _inside her_ , how Tessa’s hands and mouth had not only taken her to new heights, but also left a sense of themselves behind.

Mariah had wanted… something she’d never really wanted before last night.

_You must have been drunk. So you got drunk and had sex with a woman. Really, really, mind-blowing sex. Well, OK. It makes a good story. It’s all part of life’s great tapestry…_

Tessa’s gentle caresses, and how Mariah had wanted more, suddenly, desperately — almost _begged_ Tessa to give it to her. Her toothbrush stops, mid-brush, as she looks at herself in the mirror.

 _She’s made a fool of herself, hasn’t she?_ This girl is going to think she’s, that she… that she goes around picking up women in bars, tells them it’s her first time, asks them to… to… well, she’ll probably be gone when Mariah gets out of the bathroom, now won’t she and it’s really just as well —

Tessa is lounging on the bed in a hotel robe, looking at the room service menu.

“You seen this? You can get them to bring you pancakes! I thought you said this place wasn’t fancy.”

“I wasn’t sure if you —” Mariah stops. “Er, yeah. You hungry?”

“Worked up an appetite somehow,” Tessa says, with a look that makes Mariah’s heart explode like confetti, and which induces a particular sensory reaction somewhere a little lower in her body.

“Well, I could definitely do with some coffee,” Mariah says, in what she hopes is a breezy tone. Damn, did she not close the curtains properly last night? Good job they’re on the sixteenth floor… She walks over to the window, sees Chicago beginning to go about its day…

Tessa’s warm hands are around her waist, and Tessa’s warm breath is on her neck, and the kiss Tessa applies to her collarbone is at once playful and sensual, fun but very serious all the same.

“Tessa,” Mariah says.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

_This is where she tells me it was fun, but it was definitely no strings attached._

Tessa knows how it goes. She’s been around. Not that much, but a little. She knows enough.

 _They met in a bar, right? What else can you expect, Tessa? That this girl is going to risk it all for you? Come on, now. She’ll say how actually, she has someone, maybe she wasn’t sure about them, but now, she’s got whatever was in her system right out of it, thanks for that, she appreciates it. She’s scratched that itch, she’s ready to commit to whatever his name is. She’ll suggest skipping breakfast. And can you leave already?_ — _she has somewhere to be._

And then Mariah turns and kisses her. Not fiercely, not wildly, not even passionately, at first. Softly, like it’s a first kiss, like last night didn’t happen. Like they are more than strangers, like Tessa is in fact someone she has known for a while, and this is important to get right. Mariah tastes fresh, clean, pure… Tessa isn’t thinking about the wild time in bed last night, but about how delicate Mariah is, about their height difference, she’s wondering if Mariah has brothers and sisters or a cat or a dog or what her favorite color is, her favorite ice cream flavor, does she like sports or hate them? Which season does she love most? — and Tessa bets it’s fall.

And this time, when they go to bed, and it begins again, their touches are gentle, languorous; they take their time with each other, they explore every inch of other carefully, thoughtfully, and, well, it’s dumb to think it, Tessa thinks, I am a _dumb, dumb, dumb as all hell person_ but the word is “lovingly”, even though some of the sex begins to get a little wilder, it’s all so beautifully done between them. _Lovingly_ , yep, that’s the word, _you idiot, you absolute fool, this girl will forget you in a hot minute the second she gets out of this city._

Mariah in between her legs, Mariah in her lap, Mariah lifting herself up and over Tessa and… and then Tessa up against the wall, _why? That’s how Mariah wanted her, so suddenly that was very much what Tessa wanted, too_ , and then they were together in the shower, water running over them, cascading hot water running down like a revelation, Tessa thought as she was dropping to her knees, and then holding Mariah by the hips when she comes, so she doesn’t collapse, and escorting her safely back to the bed, holding her close. Lying together, and Tessa running her hands through Mariah’s hair, which is even redder in daylight then it was last night, and incredibly curly, now, after all that hot water on it.

“Oh, god. I need to… straighten it or something….” Mariah makes to move from the bed.

“What are you talking about. It’s gorgeous how it is.”

“I think you’re still drunk. Don’t go operating any heavy machinery this morning.”

The imaginary concept of Tessa, say, maneuvering an industrial saw, is a roundabout reference to them not being in the same place, even if it’s a jokey one, and Tessa’s heart breaks a little, fairly quietly.

“Yeah, I guess I should…” Now Tessa is the one trying to move, and Mariah the one protesting.

“Where are you going?”

“I should… get out of your hair. See what I did there? You’ve got to get back home, right?”

Tessa’s phone, in her jeans pocket, on the floor, buzzes, and she glances at the bit of the screen that’s visible, to see the three missed calls, the “Two new notifications” from “AR”. She pulls it further out of the pocket and sees the time.

11:08am.

_She’s late, and Alex is pissed._

“Ah, shit.”

“Someone waiting on you?” Mariah asks.

“Yeah…” Tessa replies, without really thinking.

“Ah,” Mariah says. Tessa hears her tone, looks up from the phone. The look on Mariah’s face is a dagger to Tessa’s heart.

“No, I mean — I… not like that!”

“Hey, look, er… it’s fine. We weren’t making each other any promises, right? We met last night, so. I mean, I probably should have asked. But then again, it’s none of my business... if you have… well, yes, exactly, like I said, totally none of my business.”

Mariah is babbling now, and Tessa doesn’t seem able to stem the flow of words.

“I mean, it’s not like I asked you to fill out a form or something, why would I? I didn’t specifically ask the question…”

“No, really, Mariah. It’s not…, you know, a girlfriend or a _boyfriend_ , or like a… husband, or a _wife_ … “ Tessa’s enunciation puzzles even herself. She’s getting this wrong. “You know, in that sense, I mean… it’s not like…”

With every word, Tessa can see, from Mariah’s face, that she is not helping the situation one bit, and in fact is making things quite some degree worse.

This is much more familiar territory than meeting beautiful women and falling into bed with them hours later. Saying and doing the wrong damn thing comes much more naturally than anything else. _Always making the wrong choices._

“Really, you don’t need to justify yourself to me.” Mariah is getting out of the bed, and opening her suitcase. “You have someone, I get it.”

“I don’t, I really don’t.”

“You know, you don’t need to lie to me. I am really not important enough that you need to do that….”

Mariah is dressing quickly; if it’s possible to dress angrily, then that is what she is doing.

“Mariah —” Tessa goes to her, reaches for Mariah’s hands, holds each of Mariah’s in each of her own. She expects Mariah to tell her not to touch her, but she doesn’t.

“Besides you, there is no-one else in my life. Man, or woman,” Tessa says.

“ _Besides me_?”, Mariah says, and Tessa realizes she has said _something_ , without meaning to.

The thing is, when she says this, it’s true. In more than one way. She and Alex are over. She had agreed to help Alex out one last time with her dumb scam, and she’s late for their meeting planned for that morning; hadn’t wanted to talk to her about it last night, wanted a night off from all the criminal machinations Alex had her mixed up in, and didn’t want Alex making a pass Tessa would need to reject again, as Alex so often did when she was high, and Tessa always did whether high or drunk or not. But after today, when she most definitely does not sleep with Alex and in fact doesn’t get anywhere near to it, she will be done with “AR” for good and never see her again. Tessa isn’t dating anyone, she isn’t interested in anyone; from the second she meets Mariah, her private thoughts will all be about this beautiful, intelligent, somewhat tempestuous woman who claims not to have a way with words or a fiery temper but who really, really, does have both and which Tessa really can’t get enough of either of, sometimes…

And “besides you”? yes. It means something too.

Right there and then, Tessa sees that Mariah does finally believe her.

Because it was true. It was totally true. When Tessa said it.

The thing is —

_Well —_

It’s just that the circumstances of Tessa and Mariah’s next meeting, some months after that day, after they have swapped numbers, and promised to look each other up sometime in the future; after they have said goodbye to each other in the room, and then without another word of discussion, made out in the elevator one last time on their way down to the lobby; after Mariah has left to go get the train home and Tessa is ninety minutes late to meet her partner in crime (but not, ever again, in anything else) and wonders if she shouldn’t have damn well run after Mariah and told her she’ll try Wisconsin or wherever Mariah wants if that’s what it takes — it’s just that, next time they do lay eyes on each other, the situation in which this happens causes Mariah to doubt everything she thought she knew about Tessa Porter, but then again, as she tells Tessa later, that “isn’t so very much, is it? I don’t know you at all, here I am, I’m falling so hard —” 

But that’s later.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Besides me?”, Mariah says.

“You know, I thought we were really… connecting,” Tessa says, giving her another one of her looks.

 _Come on, I just put clean underwear on, and now I’ve ruined it again…_

Not the sort of thought she’s ever had in the morning after being with a guy, some part of Mariah’s mind that is not currently at the forefront, notes.

“I mean… _connecting._ That’s… a word. For it,” Mariah says. She had seen the look on Tessa’s face when she looked at her phone. It was a guilty one. _Someone wants to know why she didn’t come home last night?_

But the “besides you”, the way it was said, won’t leave her head, not today, not for a while.

I mean, it’s ridiculous to care either way, though, isn’t it? Tessa could be married with seven kids or free and single, the fact is that this is… well, it’s a one-night and, er, next morning-stand, isn’t it? This is just… _something that happened_ , you know, they were drunk, and probably Tessa doesn’t want any kind of repeat… performance.

_Besides you, besides you…_

And so somehow, as these things happen, they make their arrangements to separate. _Separate? Go their separate ways? Why are you thinking of it like that, huh?_ They swap numbers. They say goodbye. They kiss one last time. Mariah experiences, and does not act on, a crazy thought that she shouldn’t get back on the train to GC after all, but go after Tessa, tell her she will give Chicago a shot if it mean if they can spend some more time together.

 _And now you really are losing it. A couple of orgasms… OK, closer to a dozen, fine, who’s counting_ — _OK maybe I counted, a simple eleven earth-shattering, insanely satisfying and yet left you wanting more, climaxes_ — _… and you’re losing your mind._

 _That’s all it takes, some good sex and you’re throwing your life away?_ _Get a grip!_ Mariah is furious with herself.

But the sensations of Tessa, physical, emotional… they don’t leave her. And Mariah will think about texting Tessa a few days from now. Type out a whole message, delete it. Type, delete. Compose in her head, type, amend, delete every single word again. Eventually, comes a night out with Hilary, and her boss’s instincts for human drama are as impressively, disturbingly spot-on as ever, as she quickly, after only half a jug of cocktails, intuits Mariah is pining after someone or other. She is not specific with the gender references, Mariah notices, either, and she wonders whether to say something about this, or not… To admit, or deny. Instead she picks up her phone, scrolls to the number, taps out the message quickly and hits send before her nerves fail her or she sobers up: “hope your good!” _[sic]._

Yes, just like that, with the bad grammar! _Yes, of course it should be “you’re!” YES, SHE KNOWS THAT!!_ The message haunts her, mocks her, for days; her spelling, for one thing. How soft, weak, she is, for having reached out in the way she did, for another.

She sometimes wonders about sending a follow-up:

“*you’re”

But she’s left it too long, and she can’t correct herself. And she can’t message again, anyway, not when she never does get a reply. _You’re so stupid,_ Mariah thinks to herself. On a daily basis. Several times a day, in fact.

To distract herself, Mariah throws herself into work so hard that Hilary ends up being fairly impressed, and even barely complains about Mariah’s professional performance for several months.

 _I’ll never see her again, I guess_ , Mariah thinks.

Mariah guesses wrong. But then, not that she was ever going to guess right, how she’d wind up crossing paths with Tessa again, some six months later.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Noah is beaming. And Mariah’s head and heart are already pounding. _Wait_ —

“So, Mom, Mariah. Thanks for making the time. I wanted to tell you first. Before Dad. Don’t get me wrong, he… anyway, look, I’ll talk to him later. Don’t freak out.”

“You’re —” Mariah is saying, to the woman on her brother’s arm, but Noah is already happily talking over her.

Tessa’s hair, clothes, styling are different, but no doubt it’s her. Mariah would know that face anywhere, in fact she now summons up from the memory bank the very distinct recollection of the morning after the night before, of her hands gripping the hotel bed headboard, and then of her lifting herself up, placing a knee on either side of that that very beautiful face, and gently lowering herself onto Tessa’s lips—

 _Hold up._ WHAT did Noah just say??

“WHAT did you just say?” Sharon asks.

“It’s great, right? _I said_ , you’re looking at _Mr and Mrs, Noah Newman_!”

Tessa is looking at Mariah, the color drained from her face. The look on it says pretty much what Mariah is thinking, namely:

“What the fuck?” —

Mariah is, despite her protests, and the occasional ramble, and the odd, drunken, misspelt text, objectively pretty good with words. But that’s all Mariah can manage to say. For a while, at least.

_To be continued_


	4. Chapter 4

Mariah’s expletive hangs in the air for a few moments.

“I mean — maybe not _exactly_ how I would have put it, personally, but in terms of the overall sentiment, I can certainly see where your sister is coming from,” Sharon says at last, looking from Mariah to Noah, to Tessa, and back to Noah again.

Noah shrugs, a happy grin on his face. “I know it’s sudden, Mom, I get that it’s gonna come as a surprise and everything…” 

Tessa’s gaze meets Mariah’s, perhaps for a fraction of a second too long, if anyone were looking in their direction; but perhaps thankfully, neither Noah nor Sharon are paying attention to the two of them just at the moment: the familiar dynamic of protective mother, and somewhat indulged son, now in full flow between them. 

“Oh, it’s _most definitely_ a surprise. I mean, honey, I didn’t even know you were dating anyone?” Sharon inclines her head.

“Me neither,” Mariah agrees, pondering why, exactly, hasn’t the ground opened up and swallowed her yet? She isn’t asking the universe for much, surely: just immediate, sweet oblivion. 

“Well, you know, I was busy, concentrating on work…” Noah says. “And then, I happened to meet Tessa.” He turns to his new wife and smiles. “ And it just kinda went from there, you know, we just _clicked_. It was all a whirlwind, truthfully. But sometimes you can just meet someone, and know right away that she’s special. When it’s right, it’s right. Right?”

“So people say,” Mariah mutters quietly. 

There’s another, were anyone to observe it, mysteriously meaningful look exchanged with Tessa, but thankfully the Newman Show is continuing apace without them, albeit directly alongside them, as Sharon allows herself a non-committal, yet at the same time seemingly unconvinced, raise of her eyebrows at her son’s attitude.

“I mean, where did this… how did you…?” She gestures with her hands. Noah seems to get her meaning. 

“Oh, well… we officially tied the knot in this little chapel in Reno. We saw the sign and — we just went for it! ”

“You got married in… a chapel… in… Reno ?” 

Sharon pronounces the city’s name in a tone that Mariah isn’t sure she’s ever heard from her mother before. Alarmed disbelief, is the best description Mariah can come up with. She knows for sure that Sharon would never have anticipated her beloved boy’s big day taking place without her, without any of them, and in such an impromptu fashion, in a chapel somewhere in Nevada — with a woman he barely knows. 

“We did that whole, getting a couple of strangers off the street to be witnesses!”, Noah grins. “Totally romantic, right babe?”

 _Babe_. If Noah had impulsively married literally any other girlfriend of approximately the last five minutes in some desert town, and come back home to tell Sharon about it, Mariah might, perhaps, almost have been able to take a step back and enjoy the fireworks unfolding before her in a somewhat detached, happy for her little brother, amused big sister kind of way, but as it is, Noah has married Tessa. And Mariah still can’t shake the thought of the night and morning that she had spent with this exact same woman; of how Tessa’s hands, her lips, and tongue, had felt, on Mariah’s own body; of the sight of the gentle curve of her breasts, her hips... 

“What were you doing in Reno, exactly?” 

“Well, we were on a little road trip.” Noah tells his mother, “Actually, Tess and I met in San Francisco…”

 _Tess._ God, this is unbearable. In the absence of a local or global natural disaster that would stop any more of this scene playing out, Mariah wonders if she can simply leave. She attempts to calculate the number of steps from where she is standing, to an escape via the front door. 

“What were you doing in San Francisco?” 

Mariah has a brief flight of fancy of Sharon as the programmed voice in a GPS device, ever increasingly horrified at the destinations its owner asks it to navigate to. 

She imagines an aghast Sharon’s enunciation of “ _Sacramento_?!”

“I was at a music festival. And I was scoping out, like, maybe another possible location for Underground. I met Tessa on day two, and that was it — the rest is history.”

“I see. Well, I think,” Sharon takes Noah’s arm gently, smiles and nods politely at her daughter-in-law, “if you don’t mind, Tessa ? — Yeah, um… I think it’d be best if you, _personally_ , Noah filled me in on the _history_ here. If you’ll excuse us a moment — ?”

“Oh Mom, now, whatever you have to say, you can say it in front of —” Noah is attempting, but in a clash of personalities, his own will, will never be more forceful than Sharon’s, and she is sweeping her son away into the kitchen before he can properly stop her, or effectively object. 

And, notably, before Mariah has any chance to make her getaway. 

“I’ll be right back,” Noah tells Tessa, as the kitchen door closes behind him. “Don’t go anywhere!”

There is silence, for but a fraction of a moment. 

“OK, so, ya know, it was fun to catch up and all, but I have to be somewhere else, immediately,” Mariah says, beginning to turn on her heels. 

“Mariah…” Tessa says. 

The sound makes Mariah stop dead in her tracks.

Tessa says her name differently to anyone else Mariah has ever met. Mariah has played the recollection of it over in her mind, again and again, now and then, since those fifteen or so crazy hours together in Chicago. How her name sounds from Tessa’s mouth. How she’s missed it, how she’s missed Tessa. 

_How pathetic I am!_ Mariah’s fury is mostly for herself. At how she is unable to shake a one night stand from her head, from her sensory memory. At the way she is somehow missing someone she had known for such a short time, who in fact she didn’t really know at all… and who clearly hasn’t missed Mariah in the slightest. 

Mariah fears she’s a joke. Fears she’s laughable, as a person.

“What do you want to tell Noah and Sharon ? — sorry, I mean, _your husband and mother-in-law_! I’ve got to remember to get that right from now on, haven’t I? — we’re family now after all!” 

Mariah can feel full-on burbling, rambling mode approaching rapidly . 

“Let’s see. You could tell them that I had to go to back to work? Needed to collect my dry cleaning? Went to go undergo a root canal? You choose. Really, honestly, I have to be anywhere but here.”

“Mariah, look…. listen…. can we talk? I didn’t know … I mean, I had no idea that —”

“How can you have married my brother?” is what Mariah says. 

“I… I didn’t know that Noah was your brother. I swear, Mariah, you have to believe me.”

“It’s _quite_ the coincidence. You know, I didn’t even know that you….” Mariah stops.

 _What didn’t I know, exactly?_ That Tessa liked men? That she… as it turns out, wasn’t gay? 

_Like I’m not gay, right?_ Why shouldn't Tessa like men? 

_Sure, why not_ , Mariah thinks. I mean, she herself likes men. Of course. You know. The men people. Men, men, men. Men are great, aren’t they? Sure they are. 

So, it turns out that Tessa likes them, too.

Why not? 

Most women do. 

But _Noah_?? 

“I really do have to go,” Mariah says. 

She can hear Tessa trying to say something, explain something, but Mariah knows she doesn’t want to hear it. She can’t hear it. She has to get out of there. She knows where she will go; and it’s not to the office, and it’s not to collect her dry cleaning, and it’s certainly not to the dentist. 

The last thing she hears as she closes Sharon’s front door is Tessa saying her name again. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

There’s a silence, that stretches. And takes up space. After the door to the ranch is closed, and Mariah is gone… and Tessa feels the loss of her. The grief of her absence.

For one brief, entirely reckless, utterly crazy, moment, Tessa had considered going after Mariah after she had practically stormed out of the house going on about dental appointments, or laundry, or whatever her thrown-together excuse was. 

But she had controlled herself, as she knew she must. How would it look, to be dashing down the street pursuing her new sister-in-law, rather than staying and waiting for the conclusion of whatever tête-à-tête was going on between Noah and his mother….?

Noah and _Mariah’s_ mother, that is.

Of all the places Tessa might have imagined bumping into the hottest, sweetest one night fling she had ever had in her life, there was no way she expected it to be _here_. But now, a thought is occurring to her, a memory is returning… 

Mariah had said she was from some small city or other in Wisconsin, right? — and now that Tessa thinks about it, it might just have been this Genoa City place. Tessa never had, as it happened, caught Mariah’s surname, had she? —no, she doesn’t think she did… so, was she a Newman too? 

As Mariah says, it’s quite the coincidence; but then again, of course, Tessa knows that her meeting Noah had not been quite so accidental, and serendipitous, as Noah’s account to his mother had made it sound. As Tessa herself had made her new husband think it had been. That was all part of the plan… Not that it was all _her own_ plan, by any means. It hadn’t been Tessa herself , had it, who had arranged for —

“Tessa… so sorry to have kept you….” Sharon is sweeping back into the living room with a polite tone in her voice, but an imperious look on her face. Tessa already knows better than to underestimate this woman. Her new mother-in-law is already suspicious, given the rapidity with which the marriage has taken place, and Tessa will need to deploy her very best acting skills to try to convince Mama Newman that, at least for the moment, she’s an innocent young woman who has simply fallen for Sharon’s handsome, charming son, and that, _whaddya_ _know_? — young hearts, run free, and so on… they had, as it happened, married in haste. 

The _repenting at leisure_ would come, all in good time. 

“Let’s have dinner, here, tomorrow night, and we can start to get to know you properly, Tessa. How does that sound? I’ll invite Nick — that’s Noah’s father”, Sharon adds, as if Tessa may not know who he is — “and Mariah too, of course. Oh, did she leave?”

”She, er, had to get back to work,” Tessa lies quickly. One of the easier lies she’s told today. ”Uhm, dinner, well, you know, no need to go to any trouble —” 

“Sounds great, Mom!” Noah is saying, at the same time. “I can’t wait for you all to get to know each other.”

“No trouble,” Sharon assures Tessa. “My pleasure. Keen to learn all about the _newest member of the family_. Shall we say, seven-thirty? Noah — you’ll have caught up your father with your news by then I hope...”

Noah smiles and nods; and so what else can Tessa do, but the same?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 

Mariah Copeland is _not gay._ Didn’t we go through this already?? We did, we did. Check back a little, okay? She’s _not_. _I mean, come on, to be gay, means —_

 _That I like women a hell of a lot more than I’ve ever liked men._

Well, yeah. But no! _No._ Not just that, Mariah tells herself. More than that. Way more than that. Other stuff. It means lots of other things, too. Gay things. Lesbian things. Things that aren’t me, that never could be me. That don’t, and won’t, apply to me. Right?

 _I had an intense experience with someone who happens to be a woman, that’s all,_ Mariah thinks to herself. It could happen to anyone in the modern world…! Tessa had been… exceptional. And a woman. But that was just incidental, wasn’t it? Mariah could, of course, have met an exceptional man, couldn’t she, if she had hit a straight bar that night. 

Right? That’s possible. 

Is it? Ok. Sure. _So Mariah, name one real, living, breathing “exceptional” man you can think of._

There was Devon, who has asked her out a couple of times, who is a perfect gentleman, a total catch, and who also fails to set Mariah’s pulse racing in the slightest.

There was Kevin, her sweetheart best friend. I mean, sure, the sex had been terrible, but that was because friends shouldn’t _do it_. Their chemistry was of another kind. 

_It’s a simple technicality that, in the event, Mr Right hasn’t showed up just yet._ How can that be Mariah’s fault? That she hasn’t met him? That she did happen to meet, hook up with, and spend a night and the first part of a day, in blissful intimacy with, a woman...? 

A woman who has now married my brother, Mariah thinks. _Like I care_. 

It hardly means _anything_ that a fantastic woman happened to show up ahead of a fantastic guy. I mean, maybe it matters to closed-minded people. Which Mariah isn’t!! That’s all, she just has an open mind, an open _heart_ , has not closed herself off to life’s possibilities.

Not the same as being _gay_. 

“Happy hour, two-for-one cocktails,” the bartender tells Mariah, and she’s grateful for the practical, money-saving interruption to her own cycling thoughts, from the same blonde girl who works here most days, and who is as upbeat as ever. 

“Then I guess it will be ‘two’”, Mariah holds up the same number of fingers; “for ‘one ’”, she concludes, pointing at herself. 

Mariah is, as she has noted to herself, _not gay_ and has her pick of any and all, including the 99% straight, establishments in the city for some day drinking. Nevertheless, it is a fact that The Matchbox, GC’s premier — on account of being the _only_ — fully-licensed “ladies ’ bar” is, outside of Friday and Saturday nights, a nice, quiet place to go for a drink. A random Wednesday afternoon when your love life... sex life... (that’s all) is in the toilet again? Perfect location, to drink to forget. 

Realistically, Mariah’s highly unlikely to run into anyone she knows here, even in a place as closely-connected as Genoa City; that quintessential big town, with a small town feel. As she had burbled to Tessa that night in the bar, she doesn’t really have any good gay friends, so… that means none of those non-existent people are, quite logically, going to show up here. 

Although days like this, Mariah starts to think maybe she should begin making some proper gay friends.

As part of life’s rich tapestry of experience. 

“Long day?” the bartender asks, setting down two cosmos in front of Mariah. 

“You could say that.” Mariah takes her first sip of the first drink, experiencing the reassuring, welcoming buzz of alcohol on her lips and tongue; a warmth that will soon be in her throat, and thereafter, coiled in her stomach. 

There. That’s better. _A couple more of these, and I won’t care so much._ About any of it.

Mariah’s mind is suddenly, unbidden, struck by flashes of that night in the hotel room: how Tessa’s hands had felt on her body, how Tessa had tasted. Mariah’s mouth, between Tessa’s legs. Tessa’s fingers sliding in and out of her... Close to the last thing she needs to be thinking of, or recalling, right now, and Mariah tells herself so, and takes a large swig of cocktail, as if gulping down booze will somehow push down the memories to somewhere much deeper. 

Mariah had, that night, immediately felt close to Tessa; in more than one way. Opened up to her… in more than one way too. But there never had been any reply to that text message that she had sent like an absolute weak fool, and the next time she saw or heard from her, Tessa had become an in-law, like they were in some dumb soap opera and it needed a dramatic twist out of nowhere to keep things moving. 

Mariah felt so stupid for having shared anything about herself at all; but she had never dreamed, that night, telling Tessa bits and pieces about Sharon, for example — not everything, but still the kind of stuff she would never usually impart to a perfect stranger — that Tessa and Sharon would ever meet in person. And she had certainly never imagined the context of that meeting in actual fact. 

_How could Tessa possibly be married to Noah?_

There is something _wrong_ about it, Mariah thinks, and it isn’t just the fact of her brother marrying someone that she herself had slept with, as impossibly awkward as that is in and of itself. Something else is off.

Way off. 

Was it some kind of sick joke? 

“Someone I was... involved with, has gotten married. I just found out”, Mariah tells the woman behind the bar.

Mariah isn’t drunk, not yet; but she’s feeling just that little bit careless. Why should Tessa be the only one who is privy to her secrets? Time to start confiding in the nearest bartender. Make sure Tessa isn’t so special, after all. 

“Whew, ouch. Gotta hurt.” Mariah’s audience _looks_ sympathetic, but then again, listening to increasingly inebriated people’s personal issues is probably somewhere in this girl’s job description. “Someone special, huh?” 

Mariah only nods. 

“I see. Figures. That there’s someone on your mind. Because I always wondered,” the blonde tells her, “why a woman like you, was always on her own. Never let anyone buy her a drink.”

“What?” Mariah looks up from her cocktail glass. Well, one of her cocktail glasses. 

“You not seen the line around the block at this place trying to get your attention?”

Mariah glances pointedly around the empty bar. 

“All right, so today’s a little quiet. But when you’re here on the weekends, I mean. You always sit up here at the bar. And you always get everyone over here, trying to talk to you. ”

So, as it happens, Mariah goes to The Matchbox on weekends sometimes, _okay_? Only now and then. And Mariah supposes that now she comes to think about it, and honestly not that often as far as Mariah is concerned, some women _do_ come up and try to engage her in some form of conversation; but she can’t really say she pays them much mind. It’s not like she’s _interested_ in any of them. 

“It’s just sometimes, it seems to me like you could do with a little company, that’s all,” the bartender says, looking at her. She extends a hand. “I’m Lindsay, by the way.”

Mariah hesitates. Extends her own hand, after a moment’s thought. After pushing all thoughts firmly to the back of her head, truth be told.

“Mariah,” Mariah says.

“Pretty name. Suits you.”

Mariah sips more cosmopolitan, and prays for the ethanol to kick in more fully, sometime very soon. She’s still nowhere drunk enough to even _begin_ to deal with today. 

“I’m sure you’re paid to say nice things to the customers.”

“Between you and me, I’m paid to keep them drinking. Which, from back here,” Lindsay gestures to the bar, “means applying a mixture of positive and negative reinforcement. You know, _yeah, you did the right thing coming here! ‘Cos it sounds like you had a terrible time of things lately. I got something right here to help you forget about that._ ”

Mariah raises the glass to her lips again and narrows her eyes. “Are you meant to give away trade secrets like that?” 

“You’ve got a very trustworthy face,” Lindsay shrugs.

”Oh, yeah. That’s what gets all the girls,” Mariah sighs.

Lindsay smiles at her. 

Mariah realises, trying to tip the contents of an empty glass into her mouth, that she has somehow finished her first cocktail. Sets the glass down, moves onto the second.

“How much longer has Happy Hour got?”

“Let’s see… seventeen more minutes.”

“Hit me,” Mariah says, tapping the bar. “Same again. Wouldn’t want to miss that happy window.”

“Coming right up.”

Mariah’s phone, sitting face-down on the bar, buzzes. She swears at it. Picks it up. Reads the message. Throws down her phone on the bar as though it is scorching hot to the touch. 

“Not good news?” Lindsay is mid-cocktail creation.

“A social invitation that I’d really rather decline.”

Noah’s message has invited Mariah to Underground for a few drinks that evening with Tessa so they can all “get to know each other.” Mariah can “bring a friend” if she likes. 

Mariah thinks that Noah must know his sister is single. Then again, she didn’t know her brother was married. 

“Bars used to do some very good business off of people avoiding social invitations”, Lindsay tells her. “But apparently these days people just stay home. By the way. If you ever feel like going somewhere,” she finishes, disappearing to serve another customer who has appeared at the end of the bar.

Mariah looks down into her hand, where Lindsay has just pressed something. It’s a card for The Matchbox, with a telephone number written in careful script on the reverse.

Mariah pockets it.

Thinks for a moment. 

And picks up her phone.

And scrolls down the contacts to the right one.

“Hey, Devon”, Mariah says, as breezily as she can manage. “That drink you’ve been inviting me for? How about tonight? The Underground. Yeah, Noah’s in town, going to say hi, but thought you might want to join me. Sure. Ok. See you there.”

And when she next catches Lindsay’s eye, orders one more cosmopolitan for the road. 

_To be continued_


	5. Chapter 5

“Well, I’d say that went about as well as we could have expected”, Noah declares, carefully hanging up his jacket, equally carefully closing the closet door, and turning to his new wife with a smile. 

They’re a “ _we_ ”, now. Tessa is Noah’s wife. _Of course_ , it was all _part of the plan_ ; but sometimes, Tessa forgets the role she is playing, even though she is supposed to know the script. She can’t quite say she knows it _by heart._

Tessa never could have anticipated Noah would propose so soon, nor that she could so easily persuade him into a budget wedding, in the desert, within a couple of hours of their first conversation about getting hitched. All of this, whilst making Noah think it was all his own idea, of course. But it turns out that Tessa’s new husband is, as she had been briefed, indeed a hopeless romantic with chronically awful judgment about women. In the circumstances, what else could Tessa do but accept when Noah had asked her to marry him? There might, after all, not be another opportunity.

If Tessa had turned him down, suggested they get to know each other more, it might have added more overall credibility to the enterprise —but she would risk Noah’s family talking him out of the whole thing. The way Noah had talked about his parents, it sounded as though he expected more resistance to the union from his father than from his mother; but Tessa had now seen the steely gaze in Sharon’s eyes, and had quickly appreciated that Noah's mother was a million times more worldly-wise than her soft-hearted son. She would be no pushover. Sharon was already suspicious, and Tessa knew that the supposed casual and impromptu and sociable dinner tomorrow night would in fact be a full-on grilling about Tessa's background, her family, her intentions; more than anything, the simple fact of _who she was._ She would need to have all her answers prepped and ready.

There had been no time for a pre-nuptial agreement; Tessa had seen to that and Noah had fallen so easily into line. But there was still time for a post-nup. And still an opportunity for a premature divorce, without Tessa achieving what she had set out to accomplish. 

Tessa smiles, now, at the very tidy, very thoughtful, Noah, and makes a special effort to hang up her own coat properly, too, rather than instinctively throwing it over the nearest chair. Noah’s place is ordered; perhaps verging on obsessively so. _Extremely neat_. Later, Tessa will learn that that’s how a home looks when a professional cleaner comes in three times a week; and that this, in fact, is how rich people live — never mind their options, their endless horizons of possibility — these people don't even have any particular need to clear up after themselves. But to be fair to Noah, he is, truth be told, organized and methodical when it comes to his personal possessions and his personal space. Everything here is ordered and has its place, in this spacious apartment that no doubt Noah’s parents, or his parents’ money at least, bought for him.

Tessa thinks the last thing either of her own parents bought her was probably a Happy Meal. And here’s Noah Newman, living somewhere that probably cost a million dollars or some impossible number like that, and which is most likely all paid off, too. 

_Think of it_ (and Tessa does). No rent check to cover each month. No sleepless nights or distracted days, worrying that your dad drank it all. Or that your mom did _god knows what_ with it.

Or thinking _what you might have to do_ , to get the landlord to let it go.

~~~~~~~~

“We can come to an arrangement, beautiful,” the guy who owned their place, or at least chased the payments, had said, when Tessa went to plead the case for the Porters not to be kicked out after one too many bounced checks.

“Cash ain’t the only way, girlie,” he added. “You got _other things_ you can pay with.”

The up-and-down look this slug of a man gave her had made Tessa feel sick to her stomach. It was nothing new, she supposed. Men had looked at her like that before. A couple had done more. Had touched her in ways Tessa didn’t want. Tessa didn't like to think about it, didn't want to make a big deal of it, even to herself, but sometimes, it was too much. The memories pushed through, and the fear and anger, the humiliation, the helplessness, would come rushing back. And it was the last of these that was unquestionably the worst of all, this feeling of having no power or control over what happened to her, the hot tears it prompted, the feeling that she had to go, get away.

To where? Just somewhere. _Not here._

One day, she had been walking home from school, and out of nowhere, a car pulled up. It was a guy who used to work with her dad, back when he had a regular job. Terry Something-or-other, his name was. He had offered Tessa "a lift home."

Tessa wasn’t dumb. She said no. But Terry Whatshisfuckingname had got out of the car, and he tried to grab her. It was getting dark already, early, the winter now, and this piece of shit might have succeeded, too, if someone hadn't stepped in.

“Leave her alone!”

It was Mallory, a girl who had been in the class above Tessa at school, who lived across the street. A girl Tessa had kissed a couple of times over the previous, raging hot summer. 

Now cast as Tessa's savior, Mallory had dragged Terry Thewannaberapistpieceofshit off Tessa, somehow, kneeing him in the balls for good measure. She sent the guy sprawling over the sidewalk, his mouth full of cusses and insults. He called them bitches and sluts and whores and everything else, but Mallory had managed to stop him, and the next thing Tessa knew, the dumb fuck's car was gone, with a frustrated screech of tires and a final set of expletives. She and Mallory were left standing on the sidewalk, looking at each other.

Since they had kissed those two or three times, Mallory had not even really acknowledged that Tessa existed. Would walk right past her, if they happened to encounter each other in the neighborhood. 

But Mallory had so been different when it was just the two of them, together… they were close, closer than Tessa had ever been to anyone else, physically or otherwise. Mallory was gentle, thoughtful. Told Tessa how beautiful she was. There was nothing frightening about being with her, no terror about what Mallory might want from her next. Not like when Tessa had spent time with guys, wondered what the fuss was about, kissed them and felt nothing, let them touch her and felt even less; done more, whether or not she really wanted to, and decided there was something wrong with her, because she couldn't see the big deal, not at all. And always, at each stage, dreaded what the next push from them would be. 

Worse things would happen to Tessa, after this. Guys who _really_ didn’t take no for an answer. Not pushy teenage boys. Much worse than that. When there was no Mallory or anyone else to save her.

But not then. Not that day.

That day, Mallory escorted Tessa home, and made sure she was safely inside the house. If you could, in fact, call Tessa's parents' house _safe_. Already, some time before splitting for good, Tessa was out of it as much as she could be. As much as her conscience permitted her.

But Mallory had dropped her off and was turning to leave, and it was Tessa who stopped her, reached out, pulled the other girl inside the porch and held her close. Unlike the other times, it was Tessa who made it happen, initiating the kiss, calling Mallory a hero — and smiling at her. Tessa hadn't smiled for a while, her muscle memory failed her, but at that moment, she felt those unfamiliar nerves and sinews move into formation, because here was an occasion for it. Mallory was a hero, _no,_ a _heroine_ , rather, Tessa corrected herself, smiling wider, leaning in, Mallory's lips soft and tasting like Cherry Coke and marshmallow, as they always did.

Girl had a sweet tooth for real.

Yes, it was Tessa who started the whole thing up again. 

"We should get out of here," Mallory used to say, when they were alone. She had these dreams, these fantasises of running away, of getting the hell away from where they were. _To where?_ Tessa would wonder, sometimes aloud. _To absolutely anywhere else,_ was Mallory's take.

And if Tessa had only had to worry about her own self, she would have forgotten about the landlord or the landlord's enforcer or whoever he was, and the rent, the bills, all of it. She would have gone. Taken her chances.

But it wasn't just herself she had to look after. Her mom and dad could _go to hell,_ but her brothers and sisters? They had no-one but her.

And so back on that day, with the rent not paid, and so many thoughts of Mallory and her plans to get the hell out, and not wanting to give herself to that disgusting man, Tessa had returned to the house. Ransacked the place.

And finally found her dad’s stash.

_He should learn to hide things better._

Tessa took the money, but left the drugs where they were. Paid the rent in cash, not in kind. That latest creep who had sleazed on her, whoever he was, had shrugged, and told her, _fine,_ the debt was settled; but there were, after all, _so_ _many other months in the year._ So he would expect to see her again _sometime soon_. 

A day or so later, Tessa's dad went crazy when he realised she had stolen from him. Although _was_ it stealing, really? The rent was her father’s debt, and they couldn’t all live out on the streets just because he couldn’t get his shit together, could they? Tessa had told her dad so, and got the beating of her life in return. His fists. His belt. He had lifted her off of the ground, slammed against the wardrobe in the room she shared with Crystal and Holly, and thrown her to the floor and kicked in the stomach. It was the worst her Dad had ever beaten her, amongst stiff competition. She could hardly move when he finished. At one point, she had had this terrible thought. That her dad might do _something else_ , something worse, something he never had, but something she knew incredibly disgustingly shitty fathers sometimes did to their children. Maybe he thought about it, but he thought better of that. He didn't do that to her, not _that._ Just the physical stuff. Just giving her cuts and bruises and aches and pains that Tessa would feel and show for days.

Yeah, only _that_. 

Her mother not intervening. Not at all. 

_Fuck the both of them._

Tessa stayed home until she could see out of her right eye again. And when she finally left the house, she went to Mallory.

“Son of a bitch.” Mallory’s hands had balled into fists when she saw what Tessa's dad had done. She was shaking. Rage. _The helplessness._ Tears in her eyes.

“It’s okay…” Tessa mumbled.

“No. It’s _not_.”

“It’s not,” Tessa had agreed quietly.

“You should come with me. When I get out of here.”

“And go where?” Tessa asked.

They could jump on that bus at the end of the street. Get to the bus station, or the railway station. Get a ticket. To where? To _anywhere_. Tessa had some money saved from this and that, in a safer place than her dumbass dad had left his money (he kept it in a gym bag in the closet?? I mean, _c_ _ome on!_ )

But what about Crystal…? Holly...? Bobby... the others…

“Just somewhere, Mallory said, in barely contained fury, "that _isn't here._ "

Tessa had reached for Mallory’s hand. Uncurled her tightened fingers.

Kissed them.

"You shouldn't be reassuring me," Mallory had said quietly. "I should be the one who..."

And something shifted, became more serious, between them, and then Tessa knew it would happen.

Her first time with a woman, well, still a girl, then, Tessa supposed, as she herself was. But in any case, later, Tessa would wonder if she could count it as her first time, _period_. Those guys, after all, who she had let do what they wanted to her, had never done anything _for_ her. It had all been about _them_ , never even inadvertently pleasurable in any way, and anything she felt, she knew, was less than an afterthought to them.

But Mallory? She wasn't anything like that. She was loving, gentle. She kept asking if Tessa was okay, so many times. _Tessa was officially more than okay._ What they did had been beautiful, life-affirming. _Actually good and pleasurable._

Tessa thought she had worked sex out, then. Didn’t know it wasn't always that way, even with women.

Because, after that, it had never really been like that again.

_Not until Mariah._

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“I’ve got a date,” Mariah announces, sipping what is _definitely_ her last cosmo, and splashing some of it on the bar in her enthusiastic swing of her wrist.

“Well hey, good for you,” Lindsay replies. “I’m glad to hear, that you _do,_ after all, have your eye on someone. I hope she knows how lucky she is.”

“Uh." Mariah swallows hard. _When will she feel sobriety slip away?_ It's outstaying its welcome?? _Surely it will be gone very soon??_

"It’s a ‘he'," Mariah says quickly, and takes another gulp of cocktail. 

There is an audible pause. Mariah fancies that she hears clocks tick and pins drop, even though the bar's background music is even at its lowest volume, enough to obscure anything of that nature.

“Really?” Lindsay leans on the bar. Her eyebrows are raised. Overall, Mariah, if asked, would describe Lindsay's look as _less than convinced_.

“What? I could like _men_ ,” Mariah says. “I mean, I _can_ like men. I mean, I _do_ like men.”

“Sure,” Lindsay says mildly.

“You say that like it's _not how it is_."

Lindsay smiles and shrugs. “Well you know, Mariah, I don’t think I’m the one who needs convincing.”

Mariah lifts her glass to her lips. Comes up empty.

Damn, _there’s no more drink in here, really?_ _What about one more after this?_ _It’s not like I’m driving._

“You know, for your information, he’s a really nice guy. And a billionaire", Mariah adds.

Lindsay nods. “Aha, I see. It’s making more sense now.”

“I mean, that’s _not why I like him_ ,” Mariah says quickly. “The fact that he... _owns buildings_. Truth is, you know, he’s… _hot._ ”

“Right,” Lindsay says, with the same gentle tone.

Two women enter the bar, and promptly slink into a corner, where they apparently want to talk closely and be undisturbed. Mariah glances over quickly before looking back down at her empty glass. What is happening over there is either a hook-up, or a fight. You have to really care, to get that angry. Whatever is going on is something with a dangerous level of intimacy; but hard to tell, from this distance, which type.

“I slept with a woman,” Mariah tells Lindsay suddenly. _Oh, is it here, finally? What oblivion through yonder cocktail breaks... or... let's pretend I made some mangled reference that makes sense._

“ _Uhm-hmm_.” Lindsay is drying a couple of cocktail glasses and rearranging the drinks bottles behind the bar as they talk.

“You... you don’t sound surprised?”

“Oh, I’m sorry. My apologies, Mariah. Let me try that again… _Uhm-hmm_.”

“But that was... _exactly the same_ …” 

Lindsay performs an exaggerated shrug. “Okay, okay, you dragged it out of me, Red. Breaking news: _I’m not surprised_.” In a softer voice, she adds, “I hope you had a good time.”

“Time of my life,” Mariah admits. She must definitely be a bit drunk now. “But now… I mean... it's gotten complicated."

"Oh yeah?" Clinking noises, as Lindsay discards an empty bottle of vodka and opens another. 

"Yeah." Mariah pauses, and throws her arms wide, her palms upwards, a gesture of near-surrender to whatever bullshit the universe has planned for her next. "You'll like this. Get this. This woman... she’s... married my brother.”

The two women ensconced in the corner look up suddenly. 

Mariah's face feels hot. She has been perched against the bar, leaning on the edge of her stool, but now she sits back, and takes a moment. Observes Lindsay's palpable wince at this latest revelation.

“This one's on the house,” the bartender says, her expression saying what her words don't quite, and her hand carefully sliding over to Mariah, what is _definitely Mariah’s last_ cocktail. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

_“How about we spend some quality time together?”_

Tessa’s reverie, her trip into her own past, is interrupted. In the here and now, she is not, after all, in Chicago, be it a few years ago or a few months ago, but in this strange little city a few hours away. Noah — _her husband, somehow_ — is sliding his hands around her waist, and pulling in her close. Beginning to kiss her.

It’s not that kissing Noah is gross, or disgusting. Not really anything like that. It’s just that Tessa feels absolutely _nothing_ with him. It’s a numbness, more than anything. Which, she supposes, isn’t exactly a surprise, when she has been playing the guy since the day they met — since even before that, actually, given that even meeting Noah in the first place had itself been a setup.

Perhaps also not a surprise, given she's never felt anything when she kisses a man, at all. 

Tessa doesn’t say _gay_ about herself. Or _lesbian_. Never has. Truth is, she doesn’t say anything. She just does what she does, and feels what she feels. It’s just that oftentimes, with her free choice, and without any ulterior motives... she ends up with women.

Since those teenage years back home in Chicago, Tessa has always had a better time with women, than with men. Even if not quite as good time as with Mallory, not until... Well... Yeah... Women. Better. In bed, or out of it. She has always felt safer with them, and closer to them, but it’s more than that, she knows. She even prefers the person _she herself is_ when she is with women, to who she is, when she is with guys. The “straight” her is fake, false; distant from her true self. An act. Not just with Noah, not just for the reasons she is with him. But with all men.

But right here, right now? She still has to follow the plan.

Can’t screw it all up.

Can't... _think about Mariah..._

Noah is still kissing Tessa. But wanting more from her. OK. _She can do this._ Noah is a great guy, right? Handsome. Thoughtful, for the most part. Sure, he’s crazy rich in a way he himself doesn’t even begin to appreciate... and he will never know the powerlessness of poverty, the quiet sad rage of no options, of not even being sure there will be a roof over your head tomorrow... and there’s just a little hint of arrogance in how he carries himself...

But the wealth is, after all, why Tessa is doing this, isn’t it? And the touch of arrogance makes him just that little bit oblivious to what Tessa is really up to, so maybe it’s for the best.

Tessa just needs, she tells herself again, to put up with a bit more of this. Not much longer. Just as long as it takes. Noah’s meaningless kisses. His always rough face, even though he is meticulous about shaving, and tries to be considerate... It's just... it would be easier if there wasn't... if she hadn't... if... 

Noah’s lips are hard against her own. Tessa’s mouth always hurts afterwards. 

Not like with Mariah, _and there it is,_ the thing she can't think, the distraction she can't allow but which she feels in every cell of her body now, in every brain cell, in her soul, if she had one, which when she is with Noah she thinks doesn't exist but other times, other times... She is not supposed to be thinking of the impossible softness of Mariah's touch, of their melting into one another. Nothing like that. 

But _today_ Tessa had seen Mariah again and...

It was like... water, in the desert (and Tessa didn't mean Reno). It was like coming up for air after being underwater (and not at the safe, boring, municipal pool). It was like _breathing again_ , after holding her breath for such a _long time_. She thought at first, seeing the redhead again, that somehow Noah must have worked her out, realised her game, was ready to confront her, and had brought his sister to play a significant part in the showdown. But Tessa quickly realised that Noah didn’t know the truth of anything, and that Mariah was as taken aback as Tessa herself was. There was some explanation there, that Tessa couldn’t quite grasp, the coincidence of it all; she knew she was missing a piece of the puzzle, but in any case right there and then, in the same room as Mariah after such a long time, Tessa wanted to drop the whole charade she was engaged in. She wanted to go to Mariah, to wrap herself up in her, _the second she saw her_.

It had been there again, that recklessness, that crazy feeling she had had at the end of their encounter back in the city; even though, of course, they didn’t really know each other at all — but Tessa _wanted_ to know Mariah, wanted to know _everything_ about her. Wanted to say how _neither of them would go anywhere this time_.

Or maybe they _could_ , together? Go somewhere? Maybe they _should_? They could run away! They could forget this place. They could find somewhere, just the two of them, and, and... it didn't need to be scams or even grand gestures or even anything busy, they could just... couldn't they? Curl up and watch movies together, popcorn, and dumb old horror films, and sleep in the same bed, not needing to be apart, and Tessa could burn the pancakes in the morning.

So long as they were together, it wouldn't matter what they did. Or where they were. They didn’t need somewhere really expensive or fancy, not if they had each other. Not if they could wake up wrapped up in each other every morning, like they had that day after _that night_.

But then... then. _It’s madness_ , Tessa thinks. _It's not real. It can't happen._ The curtain falls, and a cold fist is once again seizing hold of her heart. When all is said and done, she and Mariah _don’t know each other_. In particular, Mariah doesn't know how _low_ Tessa has fallen, the things she has done, _had to do_ , to survive. The things she is choosing to do now, to try to _thrive_.

There are facts that Tessa can never tell Mariah about herself, things Mariah would never, could never, accept. For Mariah's own sake, as much as anything. Tessa has signed up, committed, to lie to Noah... but that’s different. She won't get Mariah mixed up in this. She can't. She has to finish what she is meant to do.

But... Mariah... _Mariah_... how she looked today... how she looked, _then..._

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Oh my god, _Tessa._ ”

A freezing cold Chicago night outside. But such heat between them in the hotel room. Moving together, against each other, hands and tongues on, and inside one another. Not rough, not that; just _meant._ Bodies slick with sweat and other essences. Not able to stop, not able to let go of each other. 

Mariah wanting more. 

Insistent. 

Demanding. 

_Loud._

“Damn, I knew you’d be noisy,” Tessa had murmured, against Mariah’s neck, and smiling. Feeling Mariah still trembling from the aftershocks of her climax.

“How’d you know that?”

At least Mariah hadn’t bothered claiming she had been quiet. Tessa was thinking some hotel staff might bang on the door in a minute and ask them to keep the _hot lesbian sex noises_ down a little.

“Mmmph, well, you’re a redhead,” Tessa had told her, as if that explained everything. Kissing her shoulder. Breathing her in.

“Oh, I _see._ " Mariah set her mouth at an angle that denoted complaint. "Had a lot of redheads, have you??”

“Ah you know, _Chicago_ ,” Tessa had shrugged, making her local accent much more pronounced, and pressing a kiss against Mariah’s lips. “All that Irish blood...”

“Great. Fantastic. _Charming._ I’m one of _dozens_... You do know how to make a girl feel special...” But Mariah was kissing Tessa back through her grumbling, anyway.

“Truth is, Mariah, you’re my first,” Tessa whispered.

And this was, in fact, the truth. But:

“Likely story... I bet there’s a trail of broken-hearted Irish girls all over this city.” 

“I swear by… um… St Patrick...? But I always loved red hair, though...”

"Good to know. If you think you can handle it."

And then Mariah was moving her over, rolling Tessa onto her back, starting to touch her again. Gasping against Tessa as she teased and stroked and pushed and pressed; as though Mariah herself were the one being touched. Mariah obviously enjoying her, delighting in her, in a way Tessa had never felt or heard anyone do before. 

As though bringing Tessa pleasure, was itself bringing Mariah pleasure.

The heaven, then, of Mariah’s fingertips against her. The ecstasy when Mariah pushed inside her. The thrill Mariah seemed to be getting from doing this to her. No-one, _man or woman_ , had, Tessa realised then, recollected later, ever been like this before.

Mariah gasping beautiful expletives, and Tessa coming hard against Mariah’s hand…

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

In the present in this cold little city with apparently one coffee shop, Tessa tries to clear her mind. To create a perfect blank. To think of _nothing_. That’s how she has dealt with all that sex, after all, that she has had in her life, that she didn’t want to have. Just _not been there_ , not really. Just absented herself from the world, from the act, for a little while.

But now, _feeling nothing_ doesn't work. She feels _something_. But not for the man on top of her. Tessa finds she can think only of Mariah; to want her... to _wish for_ her... and in ways that aren't just beautiful and romantic, but raw and real and base... between her legs. Inside her…

At the right time, Tessa fakes her climax, as always with Noah; and as always, Noah doesn’t realise. He is himself satisfied, tired, and content to drift off to a happy mid-afternoon sleep. 

Tessa waits a few moments, to be sure he is settled. And then, as her husband snores gently alongside her, Tessa quietly picks up her phone, and scrolls through her contacts.

Until she finds her sister-in-law's number.

_To be continued_


	6. Chapter 6

The light is beginning to fade; night is starting to draw in. And even now, all these years later, Mariah finds that this time of day still brings about that same uneasy, uncertain feeling.

As though she is about to be judged, and found wanting.

When Mariah was growing up, this was the time, as the sun went down, that they would all have to gather together, for their own form of reckoning. It wasn’t called that, that wasn’t how they made it sound. It was called “ _taking stock_ ”. It was probably meant to seem like an appropriate moment for self-reflection. To Mariah, it just made her think of herself, of them all, as _cattle_ , waiting to be counted. Stock, supply.

What would Mariah be, these days? Not a sheep, or a goat. A crate of vodka in the back of the bar, perhaps, waiting to be ticked off on Lindsay’s list.

_What?! What the hell is in these cocktails??_

Whatever they were called, the gatherings ended up with Mariah being publicly told everything she had done wrong in the last twenty-four hours. And there were so many things in that "everything": mistake after mistake. All the ways in which she was not being the best possible person she could be. 

Mariah tried, over and over, in the light and in the dark, in either side of that time in between the two, that terrible shift from day to night, to envision the very best version of herself. What would that person look like, sound like? What would she say? What would she _do_? She found, for all her effort, for all her near-exhaustion pushing herself to solve the problem, that she never could quite picture the _right her;_ perhaps, then, that was why she felt she could never _be_ the right her.

Every day, whatever Mariah was told was wrong with who she was, seemed like a contradiction to what had been said the day before. If she had been told she was too reticent, she would have tried to be more assertive; and then the next day be cut down for her ego. If she were told to help others more, Mariah would take this to heart; and during the next session, find she was now “overbearing” and “interfering”.

If it was only this, if it was only criticism, only being undermined, maybe she would have realised sooner, even as a child, a teenager, that she had to get out. Even as someone with no real experience of the real world. But that's the thing about, well, _cults..._ and other abusive backgrounds, something Mariah now knows, no, not from therapy; she declined that, wouldn't do it, avoids the topic when Sharon recommends it, when her real mother tries that whole "psych" thing on her, _that's not for her —_ it was instead, something Mariah had learned, had had to learn, for herself. From books, and reading online, and hell, even from watching TED Talks — Mariah had realised, on her own terms, slowly, that it was the mixture of love and positive (if in what she now knew to be a sinister way) reinforcement, with the pain and the control, that kept her there.

That, and being someone who had never known any other way to live.

And she was loved, they said. Claimed, at least. Flawed human being that she was, imperfect person she lived as, Mariah was even _special_. Chosen. That was the message.

Later, she would learn what that _really_ meant.

 _Stolen to order_.

But at the time, all she knew was what she was told. Which was that she was important, she was vital, but she was defective, and the world was worse, and they were trying to protect her, to help her, to enable her to succeed. To help her overcome her failings in an unforgiving, even brutal, universe. That was why Mariah had to run the gauntlet of her mistakes every day.

And so there was an always possible, better, Mariah; or so it seemed. One she _could_ be... Tomorrow.

It was only, that any time that tomorrow came — and it did, over, and over, and over, without fail, the routine never changing — Mariah was still, somehow, never quite good enough.

Later, Mariah learned about Cassie. They could never talk, never meet, never compare themselves to one another. All the things that twins would naturally do, would most assuredly have done, were denied them; and could never now happen. There would never be any making up for lost time. No way to determine all the ways that they were so similar, and all the ways that they were not. Mariah learned at one and the same time, that Cassie had existed, and was lost forever. 

Ever since then, Mariah had wondered, about that recurring sense of loss she had always felt: of being incomplete, of lacking, of not being quite right...? Where did it come from? Mariah had heard and seen Sharon talk about her sister, and even Nick, too; what they said, over time, and how they said it. The expressions on their faces, the looks that Mariah knew they never had, never _would_ have, when they talked about _her_.

Knowing what she did, when Sharon would tell Mariah she loved her, Mariah would ask herself, sometimes even wanted to ask aloud: was that love really for Mariah _as herself;_ or for Mariah being the carbon copy of her tragic sister?

Well. In looks, at least. Because from everything Mariah had heard about Cassie, they were, _for twins,_ nothing alike.

Mariah sometimes wondered if the explanation as to why she could never get anything right, least of all how she could not get _herself_ right — how to live, how to _be? —_ wasn’t really, after all, because the best version of herself, had always been _Cassie_.

The daughter who had been lost, and found, and lost again. The one who was, Mariah thought sometimes, still supposed to be here. If Cassie was a belated addition to Sharon's family, what was Mariah?!

 _An afterthought to an afterthought_ , Mariah thinks. A painful reminder, in more than one way.

But perhaps, she sometimes considers, often after alcohol or some other excess, Cassie would at least have understood a little. if Mariah could ever ask her.

 _So talk to me, Cassie,_ Mariah asks sometimes. 

_Are you there?_

_Visit me._

_Tell me it's OK._

There is only the silence of the gap between the end of one song on the tape in the bar and the start of another, and the squeak of Lindsay's towel against rinsed glass, and the fighting couple murmuring in the corner. Only the corporeal, only that, only Mariah's hands pressed firmly against the bar. Only, as usual, the lack of any answer. 

Only the darkening day, silently and inexorably changing tone outside.

So, sure... it's not like, these days, when she is her own person, when no-one is pulling her strings, when she is decidedly not a cult member, that Mariah has a regular scheduled appointment where she needs to listen to all the ways she’s messed up. She’s a grown-up now, isn't she? She grew up. She got out. She's her own person, even if sometimes she can feel Cassie's shadow, echo, the sense of her, around every corner, in the gap in every conversation with Sharon, in any encounter she ever has with Nick, haunting this whole, at one and the same time, backwater and yet weirdly influential small town...

But Mariah is a woman. Not a girl, not child, certainly not a victim. She has survived. She is still here. She makes her own appointments (at least for now, until she is successful enough for a personal assistant). She lives by her own, imperfect, but adult, rules. She knows now, that the family she grew up in, was not really a family at all. It was not how other people lived. It was disordered. Fundamentally so.

And yet.

This time of day still brings back _all those thoughts._

Of how she is... lacking. Incomplete.

What does that make her?

Half empty?

Or _half full?_

A simple matter of perspective.

Mariah studies her cocktail glass from a number of different angles. And finishes what’s left in the glass, when she’s tired of looking at it.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

When her phone buzzes, Mariah assumes it’s Hilary, wondering where she’s been all afternoon.

_The optimal version of Mariah would probably not ditch work to sit in a bar…_

Or maybe Devon, reconfirming their date.

 _Will she be a better version of herself, if she dates a thoroughly kind and decent man?_ _For whom she feels absolutely nothing except a courteous liking and respect?_

Mariah certainly doesn’t imagine that the text will be from a number she no longer has in her contacts; a number she has deleted, saved again, and then deleted, saved again, and so on, every few days for the last few months, and which is currently, as of cocktail number four that day, at the “not saved” stage of the cycle. 

Although she has, in varying moods, saved and then erased the contact, Mariah hasn’t deleted the text thread, that one with her own gallingly mistyped and ignored message above, and so when she looks at her phone, even without the name on there, she knows immediately who the SMS is from. 

“Can we talk? x”

That’s all it says. 

Just that, only that. 

With the one kiss. 

Like Tessa really is just the woman now married to Mariah’s brother, and the appropriate level of affection is only this.

 _Now, she wants to talk??_ Mariah emits a swear word, and bangs her phone down on the bar. 

“One more,” Mariah is saying, but Lindsay is shaking her head. 

“I’m cutting you off.”

“What? Why?”

“You will pass out on this date of yours if you have any more. Trust me, I’m a bartender.”

Lindsay quickly produces a cocktail anyway, and Mariah stares at it.

“I thought you said...”

“That’s a virgin Sex on the Beach.” 

Mariah takes a moment to attempt to process what has just been said. “That’s... a thing?”

“It is, around here. My sober specialty,” Lindsay tells her. “We get a lot of women in here who don’t drink, actually, for one reason or another...”

_It’s actually pretty delicious._

“Glad you like it,” Lindsay says. 

“I would still be fine with a real one.”

Lindsay is doing that damn _unconvinced_ expression again. 

Mariah looks back at her phone and feels the heat rising once more.

_Can we talk??_

_One kiss??_

What is there to say?!

And _one fucking kiss?!_ She’s spent an entire night in bed with this woman... I mean, just the one night, but _all night..._ If she could just stop thinking about it... And move on... 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"I don't know why I... I've never done anything like that before."

That's what Mariah says.

It's most assuredly winter in Chicago. Cold enough for snow, and then some. In fact, the snow is still falling, Mariah can see through the open curtains; spiralling flakes swirling in the night, and landing on the window, making her feel snug and warm to be in bed inside, even with someone she hardly knows. Someone she has slept with... no. More than that. _Allowed in..._

_Ok. So you were wild, you were impulsive, that's all! No big deal. Everyone needs to let off steam sometimes..._

And Tessa? Well, she's been here before; but nevertheless, although she's been _here_ , and _there,_ and done _this_ , multiple times before — she could be the tour guide, she could most definitely wear the T-shirt, and/or the fluffy five-star-hotel-branded-matching-dressing-gown-and-slippers... all the same, she still doesn't entirely understand how this whole thing _works_ , sometimes; how it happens, how one person is drawn to another and where it goes from there. How that pull, between her and someone else — always, truth be told, when it matters, whether it be after a couple of years or a couple of hours, with a _woman_.... How what's between them, manifests. How, one way or another, they end up in the here and now, after the fact. How Tessa's own fingers are now, after they have been so close to Mariah, _more than close..._ somehow even closer again.

Interlocked with those of someone beautiful, who is full of jokes and yeah, those nerdy facts, about... polar expeditions and... what... precipitation? What is this woman talking about now?

Yeah, it's snowing. So what? It's Chicago, it snows... 

Someone exceptionally gorgeous in that just tiny bit absurd way that makes it all the more real and powerful. 

"But I've never...", Mariah is saying.

"Hmm, sounds like something you said already," Tessa advises, nuzzling Mariah's neck and jaw. Again. 

"I... don't know... why..."

"Um-hmm", Tessa tells her, planting a kiss full on Mariah's perfect lips. "It's a perfect mystery. You OK? Want me to stop?" Reaching for her. Again.

"No," Mariah says. "Probably never," she adds, more candidly than she means.

Tessa moves down Mariah's body again. Hands, fingers, lips, tongue, breathing in the other woman, drinking her in...

"Yes?" Tessa asks.

She always asks.

"Yes," Mariah replies, simply and yet definitively. " _More than yes_."

Her answer is always _more than yes,_ too.

_~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~_

So, let’s get this _straight_... for want of a better word. The woman Mariah had met in a Chicago gay bar... who didn’t necessarily have to be gay, or course, being in a gay bar doesn’t mean you’re gay...! Haha, obviously, of course, who would think that...

Anyway, this person, Tessa, the way she had kissed Mariah _(you started it!)..._ how she had kissed, had made love — 

_Idiot, what are you calling it that for?_ It was just _sex_ —

Ok, so the way she... how Tessa was, in bed, well. it _didn’t seem like_ a straight girl. 

_Would you listen to yourself, Mariah Copeland??_ One night of girl-on-girl action and you’re suddenly an expert in who is and isn’t straight. 

But people could be bisexual... couldn’t they?

“They can,” Lindsay agrees. 

“Oh. I said some... perhaps _all_.. of that.. out loud, didn’t I?” Mariah sighs.

“You did. But don’t worry, this is like a confessional. Your secrets are safe with me. I am sworn to strict silence. An oath all us bartenders take.”

“Bartenders… take an oath?”

“I can see you’re a literal kind of person,” Lindsay tells her. 

“My _brother_ , though? I mean, how? Why??” These are important questions, ones to which Mariah cannot even begin to fathom the answers. More than three hundred and twenty million people in the United States, nearly seven billion on the planet… what are the odds…?

“Hmm.” Lindsay’s expression turns thoughtful. “Perhaps you share certain... qualities.”

“Yeah, sure, we have a lot in common. _Same mother_ , for starters.”

“And similar taste in women...?”

Mariah glares at Lindsay.

“Sorry. Just saying.”

“Woman. Singular. I’ve been with _one_ woman. It’s just… my brother happens to be making an entire life, apparently, with the same one. That’s _one_ , corresponding… overlapping… absolutely identical, woman. That’s all.”

Mariah’s phone buzzes again. _If that’s Tessa —_

But Tessa’s last message had made Mariah angry. So why is it now, she’s disappointed to see the text this time is from Devon...?

“Looking forward to later. Xx”

But _see?_ Even Devon had managed _two_ kisses. And Mariah hasn’t even slept with him yet. Maybe she will now, yeah! Maybe that’s what she will do. She will sleep with Devon. Devon’s getting lucky tonight. Brilliant idea.

“You sure about that?”

“I said that out loud again, didn’t I…”

“Let me get you another one of those,” Lindsay says, mixing another non-alcoholic beverage. 

Mariah finds herself announcing to yet another woman that she’s going to the bathroom.

And in another gay bar, she splashes cold water on her face.

_I might be drunk, but I’m not gay._

May as well be Mariah’s catchphrase at this point.

Back at the bar, Mariah gets ready to leave. And to go to a different bar.

“Have fun tonight,” Lindsay says. “But, just throwing this out there… if you ever feel like upping your number of women, from _one_? Call me.”

Reading and re-reading Tessa’s text, fingers hovering over the delete button, and then over the start of a reply, and back again, Mariah is in the cab on the way to Underground, before she realises that Lindsay was hitting on her.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The three tell-tale dots appear, disappear. Appear, disappear.

But there’s no reply.

Tessa thinks she probably deserves that.

And then her phone does buzz, and Noah murmurs, rolls over in his sleep, and Tessa swipes up quickly, but it’s not the message she wanted. And not from the person she wanted. 

“How’s it going? Enjoyed meeting the family?”

Tessa has been hoping not to hear from them. _Not yet,_ at least. 

“All fine”, she replies quickly.

“Been added to the trust yet?”

Tessa swears under her breath. 

“Are you serious? Bit early for that. Not even met V or N.”

“No? You’re usually much more efficient than that, songbird. Get on with it. Clock’s ticking.”

“I am aware,” Tessa replies. And then deletes the entire thread.

She looks over to where Noah is still sleeping soundly, that slightly dumb, happy expression on his face that he always has in bed. And often, out of it. If Noah does suspect anything, he really doesn’t ever show any sign.

Tessa switches back to the text conversation with Mariah, brief as it is, and reads it again.

There’s the three dots again.

Dot, dot, dot. There, and gone.

But no reply. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“I was surprised to get your call,” Devon says. “In a good way, that is.”

“You were?”

“Yeah, I mean... Well, you know, you turned me down before. I wasn’t sure you were interested in... giving this a try.”

“Definitely! Of course I was. Am,” Mariah says. “I’ve just been so busy, with... you know...”

Across the bar, Noah and Tessa enter. In different clothes to the ones they were wearing earlier today, Mariah notices. _Probably dressed up for the evening_ , Mariah thinks.

“Busy... with?” Devon prompts.

“Oh, you know. With... work,” Mariah manages. “Yeah, work. Find it hard to switch off, you know.”

_Or maybe changed clothes because they spent the afternoon together. In bed._

“Oh yeah, I get it,” Devon says. “That can be tough.”

“Sorry?”

“Balancing the professional and the personal.”

Noah is introducing Tessa to people. He’s smiling. _She’s_ smiling. 

“Um, yeah, that’s right,” Mariah says. “The challenges of being an adult, right? Keeping all those plates spinning.”

“Well, I did hear that you’ve been working especially hard. Hilary said you’d been doing a great job lately.”

Mariah nearly chokes on her non-virgin cocktail. “She did?!”

“Absolutely. ‘ _Like a woman possessed’_ , I think she said. But that’s a compliment from Hilary, trust me on that.” Devon smiles, and sips his beer. “And I totally get what you mean about not being able to let stuff go.”

“What?” Mariah says. 

_Damn, if Tessa doesn’t look incredible tonight._

_Damn, if she isn’t married to my own brother._

“What you said, about the spinning plates, such a lot to juggle, and feeling like you never stop. You know, allowing yourself the downtime from it all. Like now, and you know, I’m really glad that —”

“Oh yeah, yeah,” Mariah says. “That’s so funny!” And laughs. Because she has to look like she’s enjoying herself, given that Noah and Tessa are nearly on top of them. 

Devon looks mildly puzzled, but then Noah is introducing his new bride, and the moment passes in favor of, at least from where Mariah is sitting, an even more awkward one.

“Tessa, please meet Devon. Devon, this is Tessa. My wife.”

Noah says “ _wife_ ” so happily and proudly. Mariah tries to overlook the knife in her own chest when her brother says it... does her best to talk over the blade that’s been driven into her damn heart... attempts to carry on being sociable, even though she feels herself practically bleeding out at the sight of Noah and Tessa holding hands and looking happy together.

_Why does it even matter. She was a fling. Get over yourself. And her._

There’s a brief, wildly intoxicating lull in proceedings when Tessa’s gaze meets Mariah’s own.

 _Don’t look at me like that,_ Mariah thinks.

Is she imagining it, is it the vat of cocktails she’s consumed today, does she need an updated eye exam or _—_ does the flicker of Tessa’s eyebrows convey in reply:

_I can’t help it?_

“Oh, _wife_ , really?” Devon’s tone is warm, and happy, rather than surprised, as such. “Well, hey. Congratulations.”

“It all happened really fast,” Mariah says. 

She can feel Tessa still looking at her, and decides it would be best to stare down into her glass. An olive, didn’t she say _no olive_? Well, there’s one here anyway. _How about that?_

Noah is shaking Devon’s hand. “You know what, man, it was a total _whirlwind._ But when you know, you know.”

“That’s the prevailing logic!” Mariah declares, and feels all of them, not just Tessa, look at her.

 _Is that a napkin folded up under one leg of this table?_ It’s true that it’s a little wobbly, now that Mariah thinks about it…

“Well, good for you,” Devon says. “Hey, let me go get us a bottle of something so we can celebrate properly.” 

“Oh, there’s no need...” Tessa is saying.

“It’s fine.” Mariah interrupts. She pats Devon’s arm as he stands up and begins to make his way to the bar. “He’s really rich. I mean, you, know. Successful.”

“Oh, wow,” Tessa says. 

“He’s a billionaire.”

“No way,” Tessa says.

“Would I lie to you?” Mariah asks.

She drags her gaze away when Tessa looks at her again.

“Hey. You OK? What’s going on with you?” Noah asks, when Devon is out of earshot.

“Um, going on? With me?”

“Yes, with you. You’re being _really_ weird.”

Tessa is looking at the floor.

Mariah’s mouth is suddenly dry, her heart pounding. She tries to aim for safe territory. Safer than the truth, anyway. 

“Well… I’m… I’m on a date. With Devon. Yeah, first date, actually. _Ya know_.”

“Oh, right!” Noah says, and his face breaks into a grin. “OK, so _now_ , I get it. Well, that’s great! I’m happy for you guys. I think you make a great couple.”

“Early days,” Mariah says.

“Those can be some of the _best_ days,” Noah says. “Right?” he asks Tessa, turning to her. 

“Yeah, you two took the ‘honeymoon period’ concept to the max!” Mariah exclaims; but Noah seems not to hear the edge in her voice, as his response is a chuckle. 

“I’ll go help Devon bring the glasses over”, Noah says, looking over to the bar, saluting Devon, and gently touching Tessa‘s back as he leaves. 

There is a pause, during which Mariah judges Noah’s taste in background music. Fairly bland and predictable, is her verdict, and this tape has got to be five years old...

“So, I, uh, sent you a message,” Tessa says, when Noah is out of earshot.

“Did you? Hmm. Don’t know if I got it. But then, I don’t seem to have much luck with messages from you.”

_Not that I care._

“Listen, Mariah, I… I wanted to message you, you know, after we...”

“Slept together."

 _Yeah, the sleeping together, after we had done a huge amount of fucking._ _And before we did a huge amount more of that again._

“Yes... But I... couldn’t.”

“You _couldn’t..._ ” Mariah wants to stay in control, but she knows her mouth sometimes has a mind of its own, especially when fuelled by ethanol. “Right... why was that? Were you on the International Space Station, maybe? Or perhaps you were stuck in quarantine with some mysterious virus, but without your phone.”

“I... uh... lost my phone. Of all the times for that to happen, right?”

“Oh OK, I see. So you _lost_ your phone six months ago, but what, you magically _found_ it earlier today so you could text my number on it?”

“Um...” Tessa says.

“It’s fine,” Mariah says. “Like I told you back in Chicago. I’m not so important that you need to lie to me. And I’m certainly not important enough for the truth.”

And then Devon and Noah are back, with a big bottle of champagne, ready to toast the happy couple. 

Mariah is, she knows, pretty drunk, but she’s still not sure she’s drunk enough to get through _this_. She downs her champagne quickly, and pours herself another.

“Tessa’s an amazing musician,” Noah says.

“Really?” Mariah’s tone is becoming more difficult to moderate the longer the evening goes on, but her brother remains seemingly oblivious. “You don’t say.”

“She’s the _best_. Well, you’ll get to hear for yourselves a bit later.”

“Oh, you’re gonna perform tonight?” Devon asks Tessa. “Can’t wait to hear it.”

“You’ll love her, believe me,” Noah assures him.

“I believe you,” Mariah replies. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The song is about a snowy night in Chicago. Meeting someone in a bar. Spending a beautiful night with them.

Never seeing them again. 

_I mean, is this girl fucking serious?_

“You’re right, she’s incredible, “ Devon tells Noah. 

“What did I tell you?”

“I’d love to hear more from her. I want to consider her for my label.”

Mariah can feel it, finally, now, many drinks later. The oblivion she’s wanted all day is creeping in now at the edges of her mind; slightly affecting her balance, and fuzzing out the edges of everything. She’s finally on that tipping point level of drinking, where she can go in a number of different directions, but where she is, at last, beginning _not to care so damn much_. 

“Ladies’ room,” Mariah announces. _Seeing as that’s a thing she does now._

She’s staring in the mirror at herself, or at least a copy of herself, again, pretending to wonder whether now is the right time to call it a night, knowing that she will stay out and drink more, when Tessa enters.

_Now they both have twins._

Mariah’s full of vodka, of a sort of confidence, of a heady self-assurance at least, and ready to fight. She’s ready to tell Tessa to _go fuck herself_ , or her husband, or _whoever_ , because Mariah sure as hell doesn’t care who this girl has sex with or whatever else this girl ever does!

But when Mariah opens her mouth, she finds herself saying:

“Of all the gin joints, in all the towns in the world, she walks into my brother’s. I guess not _that_ surprising, given you’re married to him… And these drinks were pre-arranged. Actually, you know what? Forget I said anything. Like... ever.”

They are so close. Not so close as they have been, in the past. But Mariah could, if she wanted, and she doesn't, and she won’t, but she could... just reach out and touch Tessa.

“Maybe I should change the ending,” Tessa says quietly, meeting Mariah’s reflected gaze.

“To _Casablanca_? Can’t do that! Sacrilege.”

“To my song. Because... I _did_ see you again.”

Mariah looks at her, or at least the image of her. “Oh, yeah, great idea. Maybe you should also write in another verse, where you marry your mystery lover’s brother. Or is that not your style? A bit too country?” 

Mariah isn’t sure how Tessa will react, but her response is almost a laugh. And there is something else in her voice when she says… “Mariah…”

In that way she does, the way no-one else does.

 _Being the best version of herself._ A daily challenge.

“I’m not doing this, Tessa. I’m not going to do this.”

Mariah looks at the girl in the mirror. At her own reflection, that is; not Tessa’s. That girl’s left hand, is Mariah’s right. 

_WWCD?_

“ _Not going to do this_?” Tessa echoes.

_What Would Cassie Do?_

The opposite of whatever Mariah would.

“Whatever _this_ is," Mariah says. "This… interaction. This whole… thing. We don’t need to talk, Tessa. There’s nothing to talk about.”

“I just... wanted to explain...”

“Like you explained about your phone?”

“I... that was...”

“Look, I get it.” Mariah swallows hard, ready to get it all out in one breath, so she can get the hell out of there, back to the bar, get another drink, settle herself, once she’s spoken.

“You’ve fallen head over heels for Noah. He’s so great, he’s the man of your dreams. You can’t live without him, blah blah. I get it… Oh, and _could I not ever mention, at any point, for the rest of any of our lives, the fact that you and I hooked up_. Right? That’s what you want from me. Well, don’t worry. I will keep my mouth shut, I can promise you. I am not going to embarrass myself — well, not any more than I have already.”

“No, Mariah… that’s not what I—“

Mariah knows Tessa is talking. But she acts as though she doesn't hear.

She walks out of the door, goes back to the bar, orders a vodka shot, waits and watches as the small glass is filled to the very brim. Knocks it right back. And before the drink has barely hit the back of her throat, is asking for another. 

_To be continued._


	7. Chapter 7

There are, in truth, other lessons that Tessa would rather have learned, over the years; but her life experiences have taught her always to run from anger. She’s been a victim of the tempers of others, too many times; and so she avoids conflict, wherever she can. If, in fact, the truth would cause trouble, then Tessa tells a lie. If sticking around would make things more difficult, then Tessa gets the hell out of there. If trying to calm someone down is just going to put her in the firing line, then Tessa knows better than to engage.

 _And yet_.

An angry Mariah is a different prospect; a different person, from anything or anyone Tessa has seen before. Faced with Mariah’s fury, Tessa finds she, somehow, at last, doesn’t want to run.

Instead, she wants to explain, to Mariah, what’s really happening. To win her over. To tell Mariah about who she really is. Or at least, to try. 

But is the Ladies’ room, at the bar Noah owns, really a good place for that?

Not really.

 _But then,_ Tessa wonders, _where is?_ What, after all, can she say? 

_Don’t worry Mariah, it’s all good. I’m not really into your brother! I’m just scamming him for that sweet, sweet Newman dollar — and then I’m going to be outta here._

She’s not in this town for this _soap opera_ , is she? _—_ but for a very simple reason: to do a number on poor rich boy Noah, and then get the hell out of Dodge, a.k.a. Genoa City. And she really shouldn’t allow herself to get distracted. There’s too much at stake. Whatever is going on between her and Mariah, she can’t let that mess everything up…

Logically, rationally, that’s how things are. Tessa knows this. But when Mariah is around, all her hard-learned lessons, and whatever semblance of reason she feels she has, seem to leave her.

Mariah taking her by the hand, pulling her into one of the stalls, and slamming the door closed. Pushing Tessa up against the door or the wall, it really doesn’t matter which, just the act of taking control is paramount; and Tessa gasping _Yes_ into the other woman’s mouth. Mariah’s lips pressing against her own. Then, that unruly tongue of Mariah’s slipping inside Tessa’s mouth, Mariah’s hands unzipping Tessa’s jeans. Mariah sliding her fingers inside, the pleasure _—_ no, the sheer _relief_ that they are _connected_ again… Mariah imploring Tessa _not to make so much noise, damn it,_ when she is spiralling towards her climax… _be quiet —_ in case anyone should hear that Mariah is bringing Tessa off quickly, urgently, here in the bathroom…

No, it didn’t happen. But _dear God in heaven_ , Tessa wished that it did. And she now adds a further detail to the fantasy: Mariah whispering _very bad words_ in Tessa’s ear as she comes, as Mariah takes out all that frustration and anger _on her_ , with Tessa’s very enthusiastically-given consent.

_Who is she, now?_

Who, exactly, is the person she wants to tell Mariah about? 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Devon is _hot._

Right?

_Right._

_Sure he is, sure he is!_ He owns buildings! He works out. He’s handsome enough. _Isn’t he?_ And he’s a really nice guy. 

Mariah should snap him up. A guy like that isn’t going to stay single for long!

_So why is it, then, that Mariah can’t rustle up a single iota of desire for him?_

She’s been doing her best. To concentrate on Devon, to focus on him _—_ _Mariah, Mariah, eyes back on the guy over here…_ and not look Tessa’s way, even when _—_ especially when _—_ she can feel that Tessa is looking at her. Mariah smiles and laughs at everything Devon says, which is slightly problematic when it turns out he is talking about the devastating effects of a hurricane in El Salvador that a friend of his in Doctors Without Borders ( _see the quality of friends he has? He’s amazing! Come on, Mariah!)_ is helping with the rescue efforts for; but she thinks she gets away with it. Mariah also tells anyone and everyone at Underground who will listen how rich her date is, how successful, how much of a catch he is. And so on, and so forth.

After about three hours of this, Mariah glances quickly at her phone, and sees from the time displayed on the screen that in fact, it’s only been about _thirty-five minutes of this_.

_What?! How?!!_

Mariah is _committed_ to _ignoring_ Tessa. Tessa is with _Noah._ Which is _her choice._ And _good luck with that._ Mariah is _not going to back down._ Mariah _would not hurt her brother,_ but in any case she wouldn’t even have the _opportunity_ because _Tessa_ is not _interested._

But of course, Mariah doesn’t _care_ whether she _is_ or she _isn’t_!! She has better things to do than worry about Tessa Porter.

Or Tessa _Newman_ , as she is now.

_Ugh._

_God, this is tough._ And a gallon of gin and vodka have barely helped at all, truth be told; although at least there’s finally a welcome fuzziness around the edges of these incredibly embarrassing proceedings.

But still, Mariah feels like she can’t breathe.

She finishes off the dregs in her glass, excuses herself from the table, claiming she needs some fresh air. Declines Devon’s offer to accompany her. Such a gent _._

 _If only being a gent did a single thing for Mariah in any way at all…_

As Mariah moves past Tessa, her hand, involuntarily or at least inadvertently it seems, brushes Tessa’s shoulder. 

There’s a fierce shiver down Mariah’s spine as she does so, and does she imagine it, or does Tessa tremble too?

Mariah is too momentarily taken aback to remember to look away, and her gaze meets Tessa’s. There’s a rush of feelings, a sudden crazy idea to take Tessa’s hand and say, _wanna get the hell out of here?_

To where? It doesn’t matter, _anywhere_ , as long as they’re together.

 _You dumbass, Copeland._

Tessa doesn’t want her, of course.

_And you’re supposed to be ignoring her, idiot._

Mariah’s fingers rest on Tessa’s shoulder just a fraction of a second too long, before she snatches her hand away.

Clutching the Tessa-touched hand with her other, although she has been scalded, Mariah makes it to the door of Underground, and stumbles outside onto the street. Where the traffic fumes are higher, but the tension is lower.

That is, at least, until the person she is running from, catches her up.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

One time, Tessa’s dad threw her down the stairs. Even now, Tessa can’t remember why. Odds were, it wasn’t for anything she herself had done wrong. Could have just been one of her dad’s regularly-scheduled rages. Or she could have been playing the punchbag to spare one of her little brothers or sisters; that was very possible, too. Tessa would take their beatings whenever she could. In any case, that day, it turned out her father was even more tanked-up than usual, and _whaddya know_ _—_ he went too far. His show of force meant Tessa went flying, and hit her head on the wall somewhere on the way down. She was fully unconscious by the time she reached the bottom step. 

“I thought you were dead,” Crystal said later, her face pale in the late evening, and only the light from a not-so-close street lamp outside to see her by. “I thought he had killed you.” 

“I’m right here, and I’m OK,” Tessa told her, one truth and one lie. _Damn_ , if her head and ribs _hadn’t hurt like hell._

She had come round at the bottom of the stairs, with water being thrown in her face, and her cheeks being slapped.

Her father was saying he was sorry, he didn’t mean it, _wake up Tessa, wake up Tess!_

Pops trying to make sure he wasn’t going to catch a murder charge, Tessa supposed. All the same, she couldn’t help but think the dark thought that her father checking that he hadn’t, in fact, ended her life, was one of the kinder things he had done for her, those last few years. 

In the kitchen, trying to patch herself up, Tessa had lifted a hand to the back of her head, and brought her fingers back down in front of her eyes, streaked and wet with her blood. 

“It’s not as bad as it looks,” Tessa told Crystal. 

Another lie, of course.

Tessa went to school the next day. She mostly liked school, mostly because it wasn’t home; and her dad was still at the house and still in the same mood, and she wanted to stay out of his way.

But she hadn’t done the best job of hiding what her father had done, and she needed to resist the probing questions of the teacher and the guidance counselor, who had both tried, unsubtly, to ask if something was wrong at home. 

Tessa had told them she had gotten into a fight with another kid at school, some girl she didn’t know the name of, and over something she couldn’t remember. Not the most believable story, but at the same time, hard to disprove. But still, she spent weeks wondering if Child Protective Services were going to show up and take the little ones away, to who knows _— maybe even worse shitholes than their family home..._

So the next time her father laid into her, Tessa had learnt one lesson, at least. She was ready, prepared. Changed the tone of her voice, called the school pretending to be her own mom, told them: “ _Tessa was sick and wouldn’t be in today, maybe for the rest of the week_.”

Stayed in her room. Watched black-and-white movies with the sound on low. Hoped the cut across her eyebrow wouldn’t scar. Told Crystal not to worry. Finally got back to class bearing a note with her mom’s signature _—_ not that it was, in fact, signed by her mom. 

_“Please excuse Tessa, she had the flu_.”

Tessa remembers the loops and swirls when her mother signed her name, a signature much fancier than her mom probably had any right to have. A thing of true beauty. Imitated by her eldest daughter over and over, in the back of her math book, on the kitchen table; until Tessa had it just right. 

_My first scam,_ Tessa thinks now. _My first fraud._

Nowhere near her last.

That’s who Tessa is: a con artist. A grifter. A fraud. _A liar._ Mariah doesn’t really know her, and that’s for the best. Maybe they couldn’t have had such a good time together, as brief as it was, if Mariah really had some idea who Tessa was. Maybe the whole point was that they _didn’t know each other;_ maybe that was why it was so good. In the cold light of day, things would always look so different, and Tessa knew she herself would too.

There are so many things Tessa can never tell Mariah about herself. _Won’t_ tell her. Because Tessa couldn’t bear it, couldn’t live with it, couldn’t stand to see the look on Mariah’s face, if Mariah knew the truth about her.

What would Tessa see, if she looked into Mariah’s eyes after she had told her what she had done; what she was doing, _right now?_ To get money. To get through. To try to save Crystal. Sure, she had her reasons; but wasn’t it all the more pathetic, that the state of her life required her to debase, to demean herself in the ways that she had? 

What about when she had worked for Zack in that godawful place of his, more than desperate for money, and promising herself, when she got out of there, that she would never do anything like that again, no matter how bad things got. She would lie first, steal first, _rob a goddamn bank_ first... 

The thing is, sometimes, when Tessa is with Noah, when he is kind to her, and wants to know more about her, and _god,_ tries to _do things_ for her _—_ in bed or out of it, and Tessa doesn’t know which is worse _—_ when he takes care of her, when she is killing time in his palatial apartment and not in some flophouse, or her car _—_ Tessa wonders if what she is doing now, with Mariah’s brother, _to him_ , is any better, after all, than when she was in that massage parlor, touching guys she didn’t want to, in ways she _really_ didn’t want to, for the money. 

What’s the difference? If anything, her current hustle is less honest than the work she did for Zack. What makes what she is doing to Noah any “better” than that?

Only the size of the pay check involved. That’s all, Tessa thinks. _That’s all._ Same game. Different bottom line. 

So, no, she can’t level with Mariah. Not about any of the things that have happened to her. Or any of the things she’s done. Who she really is. It’s impossible. Being _judged_ would be bad enough. What if, even worse, Mariah _felt sorry for her_? Having the person who represented the most perfect, pure, honest of nights, of experiences, of her life, look at her and no longer see Tessa as someone self-assured and talented and brilliant, but someone to be pitied, as some broken person… as damaged goods.

Tessa will not do it. Leaving aside the fact she has to get Crystal away from the people who have her, that she really has no choice in the matter now and must see through what she has started, she will not ruin… whatever it was she and Mariah had had, even as fleeting as it was. Tessa will put _whatever they were to each other_ , away, in a box in her mind. Turn the key, and not reopen it. She will just be comforted by the fact that it is there, that it’s in her life. That it happened at all. 

That’s what Tessa tells herself. She will sit here with Noah and Devon, she will smile at Noah and never let him suspect a thing.

She absolutely will not finish off her own drink, get up from the table, and go outside to find Mariah. _I mean, that would be an absolutely stupid, foolhardy thing to do, wouldn’t it?_ To go after Mariah right now? Given everything she can’t tell her?

Really, if anyone is to see whether Mariah is OK, it makes much more sense it to be her brother or her (potential?) boyfriend, it really makes no sense at all for it to be Tessa who is saying she will go check on her, pushing her way through the people who are milling about in the club and queuing at the bar. Finding the exit and stepping outside into a reasonably mild Genoa City evening.

That’s the thing. When Mariah is _mad at her_ … (and she is, and will be, a couple dozen more times _at least_...) when Mariah _won’t talk to her_ … when Mariah _runs from her_ … when _Mariah pushes her away_ … Tessa finds that, after all, she can’t help but go to her. To try and make it better. To try and win Mariah over. Whatever the risks involved.

 _I can’t tell her things,_ Tessa thinks. But also: _what if I could, tell her things? That I haven’t told anyone? Certainly not Noah._

She thinks of Mariah storming out of the Ladies’ room. Will Mariah even listen, if she tries to talk?

 _(You’d have to be pretty invested to get that angry_ , Mariah says later. And something about make-up sex).

The thing is, that when not prevented by the vicissitudes of life _—_ life events she has not disclosed yet to the love of her life, although that aforementioned firecracker of a love will surely find them out, sooner or later _—_ it turns out that _where Mariah goes_ , _Tessa follows_.

Always.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 

“Mariah,” Tessa says simply, when she finds her outside.

Mariah is standing leaning against the wall, and throws her hands up in the air when she sees her.

“Why are you following me?! I told you already. I don’t want to talk to you.”

Tessa wants to tell her: I know, I know. I’m _bad news_. But you make me _want to be… the STOP PRESS, hot off the presses, revised early evening edition...?_

_Okay, so my lyrics could do with some work.…_

“I just… I wanted to see if you were okay. You ran out of there pretty quickly.”

“What can I say. It was getting a little claustrophobic at that table. Four is a crowd.”

“But… are you all right?” She’s certainly been drinking a lot, Tessa thinks…

Mariah almost, but not quite, laughs. “My life is going _brilliantly,_ thank you for asking. _Very considerate_ of a one-night stand to ask about my feelings, I must say. You can go back to Noah now.”

Tessa feels it then: that familiar urge to bolt, to get the hell out of there, it’s back _—_ but this time, for the first time of her life, she finds she doesn’t want to run away on her own. Forget the men they are supposed to be with, forget _the plan_ , forget what she’s supposed to be doing here in this godforsaken town that she’s landed up in…! She can find another way to get Crystal out...

They could travel. They could see places. Mariah would be the kind of person who likes interesting destinations, Tessa determines. There’s Paris, London, Rome. Tessa’s never been to Europe, she’s never been out of the country, not even Canada; she’s never ever been on a plane, but she’s heard of places, she’s seen them on TV, she’s read a little here and there, and what about South America, there’s waterfalls they could look at, aren’t there? That they could stand under, swim in… There’s, _who cares_ , just… to hell with all of this. She and Mariah can just get in a car and leave. Their backdrop could be Angel Falls; or it could be the diner in some other godforsaken town where they could just order black coffee, hold hands under the table, watch the sun rise or set, or, _hell,_ stare out of the window at stubborn clouds that refuse to clear. So long as they were in the same place, could be together, it really wouldn’t matter what the scenery is. 

That’s what Tessa thinks when she sees Mariah standing, fuming, angry at her, angry at the world Tessa would like to travel with her…

“And I don’t need to feel stupid as well!” Mariah adds.

Then there’s, “Don’t _touch me_ ”, when Tessa tries to step closer. “ _Save it_ for your husband, or… _whoever_ you’re with!!”, Mariah near-explodes.

So, here it is: Tessa’s final cue. To get the hell out there.

She misses it. On purpose. And does something else.

Noah doesn’t really matter to Tessa _(sorry, Noah)._ As it happens, Tessa will mean Devon doesn’t really matter to Mariah either ( _sorry, Devon, too)._

Not that either of them ever really stood a chance.

Oh sure, they’re just inside the club. Go back inside _—_ step through the door into Underground and you will see them still at the same table, oblivious to the drama outside, now discussing a business deal, sipping beers, and agreeing that the girls are best left to their girl talk for now. Noah, thinking how great it would be if his wife and his sister could get on with one another. Devon thinking he won’t crowd Mariah _—_ he doesn’t want to push too hard right at the outset of something finally happening with her, and he will give her some space.

Oh _—_ but wait. Perhaps, like Mariah and Tessa, you’re not, after all, so interested in those guys… (sorry again to them both)?

So back to _outside_ Underground, where the tension between the two women supposed to be on a double date where the pairings don’t include being with each other, carries the suggestion that they are far more than squabbling in-laws.

Anyone watching this scene, for example the guy across the street out for that late-night jog, or the woman over here using the excuse of needing to take the dog out around the block but who really wants to spend ten minutes away from her boyfriend _—_ _even these casual observers_ would think, with the sparks flying, that it’s the two of them, Tessa and Mariah, who are together, really _together_. Whatever their official relationship status is; and whatever they tell other people, each other, _themselves_ about what is going on between them _._

Random Jog Guy and Dog Ruse Lady have it right. Because whatever her marriage certificate says, however much time she spends with Noah, it is Mariah who Tessa feels she is really with _._ And what is more, she is never alone, not now. Mariah’s there, in every silent room, in every empty street; standing, possibly furious, inside or outside every bar she plays her music in. In the middle of the night, when Tessa can’t sleep and she quietly paces around Noah’s huge, perfect place, she writes songs in her head, but they’re never about the man whose bed she is failing to sleep in, the man who has shown her great kindness and who really is sweet; no. They’re always about his sister.

Tessa has one muse, one inspiration. It’s Mariah she looks for around every corner, Mariah’s every word she hangs on the end of. Mariah she writes about, sings about. Mariah she gets out of bed in the morning for.

She will learn, later, that Mariah is always quick to anger, and quick to forget; that she reacts in the moment, even _overreacts_ , and then overcompensates. That her moods are tempestuous, that for someone who has a habit of giving out unsolicited advice to others, she is anything but level-headed; and that her brain even works, truth be told, _too_ quickly most of the time, making leaps and connections out of thin air, ones that don’t stack up. Wrong-headed conclusions, which typically collapse pretty easily under Tessa’s reassuring words, or touch.

It is Tessa who makes Mariah angrier than Mariah has ever been before or ever could have imagined; but it is only Tessa, too, who can stop the other woman’s ever-spinning, mental merry-go-round. 

_Slow down_ , Tessa will say. _Switch off_. 

_Stay in bed._

_With me._

But that's later.

Tonight, she says: “I’m sorry. That I didn’t text you back. I couldn’t…”

“Oh, okay. You’re sorry for not being on top of your messages _. Riiiiight._ Kind of overtaken by events, that one, don’t you think? But you know what, Tessa, if you’ve come out here to tell me another lie? — you can really save that, too… I thought…”

Mariah shakes her head, sadly. And Tessa sees it now, that the anger comes from hurt, most of all.

“You know what I thought? I _thought_ that that night we spent together… _meant something_. Didn’t you? Am I crazy, or delusional? Or drunk. Well, sure. I’m kinda drunk, you don’t need to answer that one… But if you want to make _any of this_ better, this is the part where you need to help me out.”

They are looking at each other, and all Tessa can think is how beautiful Mariah is, and hear the crack in her voice.

“It did,” Tessa says quietly. “Mean something.”

The clouds on Mariah’s face clear slightly, but then her look darkens again. “So, what, then… after that, _nothing?_ I don’t hear from you? _Not a word?_ And then, the next time I see you... ”

“You’re… you’re just gonna have to trust me, that I couldn’t —”

“Well, forgive me, Tessa, but I don’t. I _don’t_ trust you. I don’t know anything about you, do I?! But all the same, I’m still —” Mariah stops. “Okay. So let me make this simpler for you. How about this. Why don’t you just tell me _one true thing_?”

 _How incredible you are,_ Tessa thinks _. How I’ve thought of you of every day and every night since Chicago. How I can’t stop thinking about your sense of humor, and the curve of your hips, and the taste of your lips, and how ridiculous your shoes are. How I just_ knew _you would be a top, and you are_ such _a top and I love it. And I want you to top me again right now. Let’s totally ditch this double date and go find another hotel room…_

All true, all things she could say. But Mariah wants to hear something _real_ , as well as _true,_ doesn’t she? So Tessa will give her something real.

And what she says is:

“I wanted to text you, Mariah, but I couldn’t… The reason is… I was in jail.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 

“You got arrested?!”

Mariah can’t imagine why Tessa would lie about that. It’s sufficiently “ _bad_ ” that it’s probably indeed, the one true thing that this girl has told her, like she asked.

“Yeah. ‘Later that same day’…” Tessa throws her hands up. “After we had said goodbye to each other. I met up with some people for this… thing, and… well. It was the wrong choice. Got picked up by the cops, and that was that. All the charges were later dropped, I should say, but I was away for a while there. So, I didn’t get to read your message until a couple of months after you sent it.” Tessa’s smile is rueful. “I probably should have said I would come with you to Genoa City that day after all, huh?”

“Come with me?”

Tessa blushes slightly; Mariah’s never seen this from her, and she feels a clutching, a grabbing, in her chest, at the sight of it.

“Oh. Damn,” Tessa mutters. “We didn’t actually… _talk about anything like that_ , did we…”

“You wanted to come with me?” Mariah says again.

“A little fantasy I had,” Tessa shrugs. “You know, running after this incredible woman I just met, back to her hometown.”

“I thought about staying in Chicago,” Mariah blurts out. “With this incredible woman I had met there. And leaving this hometown behind.”

Neither Random Jog Dude on his jog back home again; nor Dog Ruse Lady coming up on her circuit of the block and ready to go back to the apartment where she hopes her boyfriend will already be asleep and she can just sneak in bed beside him without having to talk to him, are so surprised at what they see, when they go past the stunning redhead and brunette couple outside that bar again. 

But Mariah herself couldn’t explain exactly how it happened, not this time. In that bar in Chicago, Tessa had, maybe, provided the touchpaper; but Mariah was, she knows, the one who had set the whole thing fully ablaze.

But tonight? Well, no. Mariah couldn’t say who initiates the second “first” kiss… It seems to happen almost all at once, that they were each telling each other the truth, and then truths were _spilling out_ , falling over each other, as lies tend to follow lies, too; and Mariah was thinking she should really ask what exactly Tessa was arrested for, and then she was forgetting to ask that question, _and anyway all charges were dropped, right…?_ And Mariah’s short-term memory failed her, because they suddenly were so close together, physically, and in finally talking after such a long time, what follows seems somehow inevitable.

The heady rush, just like the first time, when Mariah finally kisses Tessa again. Or when Tessa kisses her? When they’re back kissing, anyway.

Certainly, it’s Mariah who murmurs against Tessa’s lips:

“People will see…”

And then it’s both of them who move, who find a quieter corner of the street, the kiss never fully breaking, the contact and connection between them not stopping, even as they push and pull each other into the cover of darkness.

_To be continued._


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Don't ask where the plot went this chapter and we'll get along just fine, right?

It was Tessa who had stepped closer, who had told Mariah how amazing she looked, how amazing she _was._ Who had said she knew she should stay away, but she _couldn’t._

It was Mariah who had kissed her. 

But, everything taken into account, Tessa thinks of this kiss, as one that she herself had initiated, all the same. 

They are in an alleyway at the side of Noah’s bar, which at least is less public than right out on the street, where this had started; but it’s not the greatest of locations for what they are doing, truth be told, because as the kiss deepens, becomes more passionate, all Tessa can think of, is how much she wants Mariah to take her to bed. 

How she isn’t sure she will be able to do, focus on, _anything else at all_ until that happens, in fact.

 _They can’t exactly_ do it _out here in the street... can they?_

“Probably shouldn’t…” Mariah says.

But Mariah’s tongue is as wild as ever, and her lips are as hot and soft as Tessa remembers them, and her hands are beginning to explore Tessa, gliding over certain, _critical_ , places, slipping under Tessa’s shirt, pressing against her in a way that makes Tessa want to cry out. Tessa lifts one of her own hands from around Mariah’s waist, moves up to touch the other woman’s body, runs her fingers over Mariah’s chest, caresses her there. Tessa knows what Mariah looks like, feels like, _here_ , all under all these clothes. _Truly beautiful_. She can’t help but want to experience Mariah in the glorious flesh again.

Tessa knows, then, if she didn’t already, a simple fact: that Mariah will screw everything up; ruin all the plans Tessa has: for Noah, for Genoa City. 

And that Tessa will more than let her. She’ll need to find another way to get Crystal out; but when she’s with Mariah, she sees _so many ways out_ — for Crystal, and even, for herself.

Mariah makes Tessa see possibility and opportunity. Life is no longer a series of dead ends, so many disappointing days and nights stretching ahead of her, always running, never getting where she wants to be, not even to somewhere where she can simply be settled or comfortable… Always trying to see the angle, work out what edge she can get, what leverage she can take, what money she can make… _playing people…_

That is what Tessa has always known. That was how Tessa had thought things would always be.

But Mariah’s changed all of that.

One night spent together, months ago, had changed that. Waking up to see the spell hadn’t been broken, Tessa hadn’t dreamt the whole thing: Mariah was real, and still there, _still with her._ And somehow, in such a short space of time, Tessa’s feelings were already settling on this woman, just as the winter snow was on the street outside.

But she had hardly dared to really believe it: that she could have found someone. _The_ someone.

So when the cops, who had been waiting for them the whole time, of course, had burst in on that guy’s shop later in the day, as she and Alex tried to seal their ill-conceived scam, Tessa had simply stood and nodded, resigned to her fate. _This_ turn of events made sense. _This_ was what she deserved. Not any more time in the company of a beautiful woman with jokes for days, who tastes like heaven, and makes love like an angel — who is so delicate and yet so fiery; who is so unsure of herself, sometimes, out in the real world, but who never shows a moment’s doubt, Tessa finds, when they are wrapped up safely in one another in bed.

A woman unlike anyone Tessa has ever met.

Tessa had not tried to make a run for it, as Alex did (Alex had been caught, just the same) — no. Tessa had thought, _this is what I am due._ She had accepted the fact of being arrested, gone along with the police quietly, _made the right choice for once_ ; thinking to herself that all of her past had finally caught up with her, here in her home city, previous crimes unpunished and debts unpaid… and what was more, here was her punishment for being so happy, so fulfilled, albeit so briefly.

After all, why would Mariah really want _her?_

Tessa did her best to push the special feeling she had had with Mariah all the way down inside while she was, well, _inside_. But there was little to do, little to occupy her days, waiting weeks and weeks for the DA to realise how unreliable those witnesses were, and sometimes the fire Mariah had lit in Tessa would rise up in her, could not be contained, and she would _feel_ the sense of loss and absence of Mariah as a true, visceral pain.

But then had come that visit from a stranger, out of nowhere, being asked to take on the mysterious “job”; and finally, the charges were dropped. And when she got out, Tessa thought she _couldn’t_ contact Mariah, now, even if there was any remote chance Mariah was interested — which maybe, Tessa sometimes thought, her text had meant she was? — but it was hopeless, Tessa couldn’t pursue the connection. Not when she had been tasked with what she was doing to Noah.

But what she had told Mariah was true. She had had no idea Noah was Mariah's brother. That meant there was a puzzle in there somewhere that Tessa hasn’t yet solved; Tessa knows this. Mariah, then Noah… only the first of those had been her own free choice, and was all too much of a coincidence that she went from sister to brother by someone else’s design… but Tessa doesn’t have all the pieces to be able to put the whole thing together. Not yet.

And truth be told, _all of this_ is all something of an aside, because tonight, Tessa has already stopped thinking of the bigger picture. It’s hard to think of such things as the grand scheme of life and what the patterns of human interaction mean, with Mariah’s hands and lips on her. Tessa is thinking right now only of one half…or whatever proportion Mariah is… of the equation.

Let’s face it, math was never Tessa’s strong point. She hopes she’s better with metaphors, if only for the sake of her lyrics.

If there _were_ any bigger, deeper thoughts in Tessa’s head other than the here and now, they’ve been dispatched, in a flash of pleasure.

“ _Sweet Jesus, Mariah…”_

“I love how you blaspheme…” Mariah tells her.

Tessa’s reaction was to a particularly targeted sweep of Mariah’s fingers, and can she be blamed, because whichever way you add everything up, same result: _she’s only human_? Tessa uses her very best math, physics, chemistry and biology to work out that Mariah could make her come, right now, even a) though they’re out in the street, 2) she’s not at the most comfortable angle up against this wall, and — _hell_ , _what number was she up to?_ — well, anyway, she’s fully-clothed… _but all the same_ … Tessa’s nearly _there_ as it is, just from the way Mariah now slowly runs one, two, delicate but strong fingers between Tessa’s legs, along the seam of her jeans, and _up_.

The touch is not even skin on skin, but Tessa thinks that if Mariah does that again, then yes, her rudimentary calculations tell her, she will climax, all the same.

“Mariah. I need you,” Tessa tells her. “Please.”

“Not here…” Mariah mutters.

“Let’s go somewhere…?” Tessa near-pleads.

Mariah murmurs assent, ends the kiss. Disentangles from her. Tessa can hardly stand the break in contact, wants to reach for her again.

“But we can’t just leave…” Mariah is saying. “We’ll have to go back inside first... ”

They don’t know what they will say. How they will explain these too many minutes they’ve been away from the guys. What reason can they invent, as to why can’t they sit at that table anymore? There’s no very good plausible cause that would mean sisters-in-law need to suddenly leave together, late at night, to some unspecified destination.

Tessa isn’t even sure how, if challenged, they could possibly justify what they must look like when they get back to the table. She feels as though the evidence of what she has been feeling, what they have been doing, what they _nearly did up against a wall outside_ , is all over her, and Mariah too. They are flushed, ruffled, and more than distracted by each other. Like each has left their mark on the other.

Very much, in fact, how two women who were just kissing each other and getting a little hot and heavy out in the street, _would_ look.

Tessa rehearses some lies in her head. About being sick, about having an emergency phone call from her family. _What has she told Noah about her family?!_ She tries to remember. Yes, some bunch of Hallmark card-style garbage about a successful middle-class set of individuals who happen to be related to each other and an upbringing that _wasn’t_ entirely dysfunctional and even abusive, as she recalls…

But when the two of them finally sit down with Noah and Devon again, it seems a _deus ex machina_ has landed on some foreign shore; and the butterfly effect has rippled across to a small city in Wisconsin several thousand miles away.

“London called,” Noah announces.

“London?” Tessa echoes.

Mariah looks at her. “Big city. Over the ocean. Capital of the United Kingdom,” she says.

Tessa fakes a glare. 

It starts there; their express public show of intense dislike for one another. _The best cover for how they really feel._

~~~~~~~~~~~

“I was just about to come and find you two and tell you,” Noah says, and Mariah thinks of what she was doing a couple of minutes ago, how she had Tessa up against the wall, how Tessa’s hands had felt on her breasts, how Tessa had trembled when Mariah had begun to stroke her, how Mariah wanted her right there and then and had had to compel herself to stop, to take Tessa somewhere nicer, at least… 

“Something up?” Mariah says. The champagne bottle looks empty, damn it.

“There’s been a fire at the club over there. No-one hurt, thankfully, but the bar has taken some serious damage. I’m sorry, but I’m gonna have to jump on a few calls. The manager, the insurers...”

“At this time?” Tessa says. Nice acting skills. She’s doing a good job at sounding disappointed. If Mariah didn’t know better…

_But she does._

“Sorry, honey, can’t wait. I have to go to the office. But by all means, you three stay here and carry on enjoying the evening...” 

“I hope you get it all resolved,” Mariah says. “But, you know what…” — Mariah wonders, even as she herself does it, if the fake yawn she throws in here isn’t _slightly_ overdoing it — “this has been _really great_ , but I guess I should call it a night. Got an early start tomorrow.”

“I can give you a lift home?” Devon offers. He’s only had the one glass of champagne by Mariah’s count. 

Such a sensible and responsible guy... if only Mariah _liked_ sensible and responsible.

Or _guys_.

“No, no that’s fine,” Mariah says. “I can get a cab.”

“Well – if you’re sure,” Devon says.

Always such a gentleman. Not trying to get her back to his place and in his bed, but genuinely offering to see her back to Sharon’s safely.

He really is going to make a wonderful boyfriend.

 _For someone else_. 

“It’s fine,” Mariah says. “But thank you for the offer.”

“Well, um… if you’re going to be a while, then… I guess I’ll go home too”, Tessa says to her husband, with the slightest of shrugs.

“Good idea,” Noah tells her. “I’m sorry, I’ll probably be a few hours. You go get some rest.”

“I guess I’ll get a cab too,” Tessa says. “Can I wait with you, Mariah?”

“I suppose,” Mariah says, an edge to her voice.

_Because they don’t like each other, do they?_

Noah and Devon share a look, a guys’ kind of look that says, _uh-oh, girl fight…_

And then they are outside, and Mariah is saying goodbye to Devon, telling him how fun tonight was, and engaging in a delicate peck on his cheek, and Devon is smiling, saying he will call her tomorrow. And Tessa is pretending to be getting a cab, and Mariah is pretending to be getting a cab too — that’s, _two different cabs,_ if anyone is counting — and then Devon is leaving, as Tessa and Mariah pretend their very separate cabs are here to take them to their very different locations, when in fact they’re very much getting into the same one and going to the same place.

In the back of the cab, Tessa takes Mariah’s hand. It’s dangerous intimacy, this. Kissing, even sex, is one thing. Holding hands in what is, well… a not exactly public, but not exactly private, place, either… it could make it obvious, at least to the cab driver, that they’re more than just friends.

Tessa’s thumb strokes along Mariah’s fingers, and Mariah finds she can’t draw her hand away.

~~~~~~~~~~~

They get to the hotel. Mariah is at the front desk getting the room, putting it on her credit card while Tessa hovers over by the TV that is turned to the news channel, pretending to show an interest in current affairs, and also pretending to be able to register anything the box says or shows. Then they are in the elevator, and then they’re in the room, and then they can finally close the door, and Tessa feels she can breathe, for the first time in a while.

Tessa sets her guitar against the wall carefully with a sense at one and the same time of déjà vu, and of crossing a new line. In the same way, she both knows what will happen next; and doesn’t.

She leans back against the door that has thankfully closed on the rest of the world at last, and then Mariah moves to lean against her, and Tessa wraps her arms around her. They hold each other, breathe each other in, saying nothing at all, doing nothing at all, for a few moments.

“You know… I… I grew up in a cult,” Mariah says.

“What?”

“And when I first got to this town, I pretended to be my dead twin sister.”

Tessa nearly laughs, but a glance down at Mariah’s expression tells her the other woman is serious.

“Oh… you’re not joking?”

“Wait until you hear _why_ I was pretending to be my dead twin sister. But I guess that’s enough sharing for now.”

“Why are you telling me this…?”

Mariah runs a hand over Tessa’s shoulder. “ _Quid pro quo_. For telling me about the jail thing.”

“Glad I did,” Tessa says. “And that we could talk, finally. Just so you know, you were officially the _best reaction I have ever received_ to my telling someone I had my liberty temporarily forfeited.”

Mariah doesn’t quite smile. “Does Noah know?”

Tessa slightly shakes her head. “But there’s _a lot_ Noah doesn’t know,” she says, quietly.

“I wish _I_ had known. At the time.”

“What, that I was locked up?”

“Yes, I could have… I don’t know.” Mariah shrugs, slides her hand back down to Tessa’s waist. “ _Done something_.”

Now Tessa gives out a little laugh. “Well, woman of hidden talents, I didn’t know you were secretly a qualified defense attorney on the side.”

“Well, I could’ve… I don’t know… bailed you out, at least. You didn’t kill anybody, right?”

“No dead bodies were involved. It was this… um… _alleged_ tax scam thing,” Tessa says.

In part, yes, it was. It’s not a total lie. There were indeed a couple of inaccurate government filings in the mix. But hinting at tax irregularities sounds better than the charge sheet Tessa had been hit with when it all went to shit that day in Chicago.

_Theft, fraud, blackmail and extortion._

All charges dropped, mind you.

“But Mariah, please. I would not let you use _your money_ to _bail me out_. You hardly knew me!”

 _You still don’t know me,_ Tessa thinks. 

But that’s another part she doesn’t say out loud.

“ _I knew enough_ ,” Mariah says simply, and looks at her.

 _Did you?_ Tessa wonders. _Do you know enough now?_

Then again, she thinks, _do I?_

_A cult? A dead twin sister? The what, now?_

“I want to hear more about your life,” Tessa says. “And _if you liked the jail thing_ , you should hear my other life stories…”

Mariah looks at her.

Tessa wants to tell Mariah things. Wants Mariah to _ask her things_.

But...

“You want to talk some more?” Mariah breathes out slowly, runs her fingers along Tessa’s jaw as she asks.

Tessa turns to kiss Mariah’s hand.  
  
“ _Afterwards_ ,” Tessa says.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Mariah doesn’t want to hurt Noah. No, they didn’t grow up together. No, she didn’t even know he existed until a few years ago. And somehow, while Nick is Noah’s dad, and, the way life works out sometimes, he had become Mariah’s late twin’s parent too, they don’t share him as a father.

But none of the modern family details matter. The fact is, Noah is Mariah’s little brother, just the same. She cares about him; she wants him to be happy. That’s all true, it’s just…

This… _whatever this is_ , with Tessa... it’s something Mariah did not expect, and something which she has never experienced before. She used to roll her eyes at the plot developments in books or films or on television, the dumb ways that characters would behave just because they had caught some love bug. Wondered how it could _possibly_ happen in real life that two people could meet by chance, connect so definitively, and get totally hung up on one another. Start tearing up their lives for each other. All rational thought thrown out the window! _So dumb._

 _Oh please,_ Mariah would think, sitting in the cinema or on the sofa, inwardly sighing at the sweeping epic love scores, and munching through her popcorn, and deciding she would go for safe old schlocky horror next time. What was on screen may as well be pure science fiction for all the connection to reality it had, Mariah used to think. At least there _might_ be sentient life on other planets. Whereas she could never imagine behaving so crazily over one other particular human being on a whole damn planet crawling with them.

Even in the real world, being a bystander looking on at Sharon’s love life, even Noah’s… the way they, well, would _fall in love_ so quickly, commit, get their hearts broken… it all seemed so unnecessarily melodramatic, so far as Mariah was concerned.

And then Mariah met Tessa.

And now she’s doing things like _this_. That is, taking her brother’s wife to a hotel, and pretending they’re not checking in together, and then going up to a room with her, and when they get in the room, and Tessa’s fingers move to begin to unbutton her own shirt, she’s intervening, with:

“Woah, woah, woah. You know, I can help you with that...”

Mariah knows all the feelings she _should_ be having. She should be sorry, she should be guilty, and so on. But all she can think of now is Tessa, how she wants to make her feel, her hands gliding down Tessa’s chest, her fingers getting to work on undressing her, and, as she does something she _really_ isn’t supposed to be doing, she’s rewarded for what she would herself admit is frankly insane behavior with an indescribable look from Tessa: at once so gentle and yet full of need. Mariah’s never seen anything like it. No-one has ever looked at her that way.

It’s one of a continued series of revelations, which began months ago in Chicago and will continue tonight, of how it feels to be with a woman, more specifically _with Tessa_ : that Mariah can be in control of making love, and love it. When Tessa gives herself to Mariah, it’s more beautiful than anything Mariah has known, or could imagine. She feels, now, as she felt that night six months ago; that the world is, in fact, different to how she had thought it was. That there are possibilities she hadn’t accounted for before. That it has secrets she is only now discovering. Like Tessa, the fact of her, and how Tessa makes her feel. And what intimacy really means. 

When it begins between them, it is urgent, and as always, mutual. Mariah pushes Tessa down on the bed, gently, not roughly; but no less than this, Tessa is pulling Mariah into position too. Both of them needing Mariah on top, quickly. It’s so long since they have been able to do this, but now they _can_ do it, they can’t wait.

Mariah kisses down Tessa’s body, marveling at her; at, as she did the first time, the fact of her physical presence. How she looks, how she feels. How she reacts to Mariah’s touch. Mariah has never felt this need to… what can she call this? _Worship_ anyone physically before, but with Tessa, it’s an instinct, a reflex, she can’t help but kiss her all over, _over and over_. Since she got out of the cult, and has been required to register herself in all those official places; to have a government ID, that whole deal, Mariah has checked “No Religion” on all official forms, the census; but she’s beginning to think she might have some kind of belief in a higher power of some kind.

Mariah flicks her tongue between Tessa’s legs. She’s wet and ready, shaking at Mariah’s touch. Mariah moves back up to kiss her face, dropping her hand to where her tongue has just been, and Tessa gasps as Mariah strokes Tessa’s clit carefully, gently, not rushing. Taking her time, sensing what Tessa needs.

And then Mariah looks deep into Tessa’s eyes, as she gently slips two fingers inside her.

Neither of them moves for a moment, not a muscle. They both simply revel in how this feels, at last. To be connected in this way. It’s total bliss. Mariah feels a sudden sense of calm and peace, like she’s in the right place, for once in her life. As though she’s been on a journey, and she’s finally arrived.

It’s Tessa who breaks the silence with: “I missed you.”

“God, I missed you too,” Mariah responds quickly. And moans as Tessa moves, wraps her legs around Mariah’s own, now, and Mariah feels herself tremble, too, as Tessa opens up more, pulling Mariah’s fingers in deeper, as Tessa spreads her legs wider.

“It feels so good when you’re inside me,” Tessa tells her. “Do I feel good to you too?”

“Tessa…”

“Tell me,” Tessa pleads.

“I can’t describe how incredible you feel,” is what Mariah says, and it’s true, she doesn’t have the words for the sensation of this. After so many nights fantasizing about being right here, and doing just this, they’re finally together again.

Tessa’s like velvet, inside. Soft, and delicate. Mariah curls her fingers slightly, hears Tessa moan gently as she does so.

Mariah already knows she can — sometimes, must — dominate Tessa but she must always listen to what Tessa is telling her with her body, and from her lips, too; must be careful and gentle sometimes.

And other times, not so careful and gentle at all.

It all depends.

As Mariah now begins to move in earnest, her fingers beginning to stroke in and out, she sets the right pace and pressure by heeding, and reacting to how Tessa moves against her; Tessa’s gasps, and the odd uttered word here and there, these guide Mariah and what she does, and how she does it. 

If the rest of Mariah’s life sometimes feels just a little monochrome, and that little bit awkward, Mariah bringing all the jokes and little funny comments to lighten the mood, _yes she knows that her sense of humour could be a form of self-defense too, you think she doesn’t know Psych 101, thanks,_ _she is aware_! —Tessa is vibrant color — somehow not familiar, not even reassuring, sometimes, and often unpredictable. To be carefully studied. But beautifully inevitable, all the same.

It’s not that Mariah knows everything about Tessa – hell, she barely even knows _one or two things_ , even by her own admission. But she also knows it’s not going to matter, because she also knows full well what she realised the first time they were together.

That she doesn’t want to be without her. That she wants to help her, protect her, save her, adore her.

That she wants to _do other things to her, too_.

Mariah now slides gently out of Tessa, to Tessa’s murmured protest, brushes a kiss against her lips, and moves down the bed. Drops her head, and lifts her hand again. Puts her tongue on Tessa while slipping her fingers inside her softly again, touching her both ways, at the same time.

Her touch, now, is most definitely deliberate in its particular pace and pressure: good, very good, but not _too good._ Perfectly imperfect.

She keeps Tessa on the brink, _on purpose_ ; and they both know it.

~~~~~~~~~~~

“I… didn’t… know…” Tessa notes, in a particular pitch of voice, “that… you… could… be… so… cruel.”

“Oh yeah. Thought I’d _share more about me_ …” Mariah is back on top of Tessa, kissing her, her fingers still keeping Tessa on the edge. “Without the need for a big conversation.”

“Oh god,” Tessa moans, hot, flushed and needy, barreling towards desperation, if she is honest. Wanting and needing to come so badly, but the torment of Mariah’s control is a high of its own kind…

“Please…,” Tessa gasps, because she can’t help it; she is writhing under Mariah’s hand. Suffering terribly, enjoying completely.

“Oh… I like it when you say _please._ ”

“Do you?”

“Very much.”

“Where… did you learn to do this?” Tessa fixes her lover with what she hopes is her best steely glare, in the circumstances.

“Instincts…”, Mariah shrugs.

“Beginning… to… get suspicious about… those _instincts_.”

Another occasion on which Tessa wonders if Mariah can _really_ be so inexperienced with women as she claims…

“What can I say. You bring out a different side to me, Tessa!”

"Fffffuck...."

 _Typical. I’ve created a monster,_ Tessa thinks. She would say so, if she could now say anything other than:

“Ugh… god… I can’t… Mariah. _Please…_ ”

Mariah sighs, relents.

“Well… _okay..._ I _guess_. Seeing as you’re asking so nicely…”

Mariah shifts position, shifts how her fingers move.

 _Now_ , it’s going to happen. Tessa wants the end... but then again, doesn’t want this to stop. But the certain end of this can’t not arrive, not if Mariah does _that._

The delicious delight of knowing for certain how she will soon feel.

Only one person can do that for her, in this way. Only one person ever _has_.

Mariah doesn’t even need to say it, but when she does say,

“Come for me…”

Then, Tessa does — lifts her hips and crashes her whole body down, her climax so hard, and strong, and deep, rushing over Mariah’s hand, she feels as though she is spilling over, she’s needed this so long, and hardly dared believe she would get it again, and now it’s happening, it’s finally happening, Mariah’s fingers and the earlier work from her tongue have done this, brought her to this point, and pushed her right over the edge. Tessa closes her eyes, it’s too much, too intense, but then she opens them again, she has to see Mariah, has to see the look on Mariah’s face when the other woman does this for her... Mariah loves to see her like this, and it shows.

Months of frustration and desire are released in a hard, strong, true bucking of Tessa's hips on Mariah's hands. Not since Chicago has this happened for her, Tessa hasn’t felt pleasure like this all that time, not since the last time with Mariah, and it’s a pleasure that comes in waves, over, and over. They’re both swept away by the force of it by the end, both crying out, both holding onto one another. And then Mariah is moving, kissing her: everywhere, everywhere, but especially _there._

_To be continued._


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to @FridayinCanada for clips and content inspiration, also making sure that I do actually deliver chapters and don't give up on them...!

Tessa is still on a high from what Mariah has done to her. Yes, she had engaged in extensive teasing and tormenting; but she had made Tessa come deeply, _fully_ , Tessa thinks, in a way she hasn’t for months. Not since the last time, the first time, that they were together.

And Mariah is still on top of her, above her, telling Tessa to _relax, it’s okay_ ; but Tessa’s able to sense how ready Mariah is, how much she wants this, _needs this_.

All the same…

“Is this OK…?” Tessa asks, hands hovering, waiting for Mariah’s answer.

“You have to ask?”

“Well… I always _like_ to.”

Mariah looks at her carefully. There’s a conversation they need to have, will have. Later. For now, Mariah simply tells her:

“You always have my _yes_ ,” and kisses her, and now Tessa moves to touch her, urgently. Differently, of course, to how Mariah had made love to her, but no less wanted, by either of them, and in any case, the result is as inevitable as Tessa’s own climax was, albeit faster, less controlled, Mariah quickly bearing down on Tessa’s hand, thrusting her hips fiercely, and making as much noise as she always does when she comes.

Mariah doesn’t make to move anywhere immediately afterwards, but stays right where she is, lying between Tessa’s legs, comfortable there, it seems, with Tessa’s legs wrapped around her. Tessa moving her hand to run her fingertips softly up and down Mariah’s spine. Mariah leaning in to kiss her again.

Mariah’s the best kisser Tessa has encountered. She always seems to luxuriate in the movement of her lips against Tessa’s own, and Tessa simply _can’t think_ when Mariah kisses her —in the best kind of way. She’s _beyond_ distracted, she cannot plan or assess anything, but there are no bad memories, there is no uncertain future, and no current troubles. And all effort at calculated scheming that she might have had in mind for this city when she got here, gets lost somewhere between Mariah’s lips and her own.

And then Mariah is moving, slipping through Tessa’s hands; and sliding down her body, and shifting so that her mouth is on her, and Mariah has turned herself, no, the _two of them_ , a certain number of degrees so that in this position, Tessa finds she can reach to taste her too, and she does so, that was clearly Mariah’s intention, and Tessa is at once both giving and receiving pleasure — and it’s a _little much,_ honestly. Very intense, almost _too good_ … if that's possible. All Tessa’s senses near-overwhelmed with searing shock at how it feels. 

One of a number of positions — and she will find, as the two of them continue to get to know each other better, that there are others — that Tessa has previously found awkward, and never particularly enjoyed, not before Mariah, but which now, Tessa finds she _wants_ to do, if she can do them with her; and _only her_. 

However good the sex is, there are, it turns out, limits: Tessa cannot both herself come and make Mariah come, not at one and the same time. Their synergy is not yet perfect, then; not that Tessa is so sorry that they have things to work on, excuses to spend more time in bed together in the future. Tessa stops her own movements, just for a while, and enjoys Mariah’s alone for a few moments; lets her lover draw out her pleasure for her. Rides the wave out, on Mariah’s tongue.

And after that, does the same for Mariah, too.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Lying somewhere between deep satisfaction and a light sleep, Tessa considers writing a song about Mariah’s touch.

(Much, much later, it so happens that she _does_ write a song along these lines.

Mariah’s reaction:

_“You’re incredible.”_

Tessa’s — interrupted — query:

 _“I am? Is that in like, a good kind of w_ —”

The bedroom door shutting, with a fierce slam. And from beyond it:

 _“It’s like_ nothing _is sacred!.”_

Tessa, tapping a pencil against the side of her head and pointing at the decidedly closed door: _“Hey! “Nothing Is Sacred!” Great title. I love it.”_

An exasperated noise from the bedroom. _“For god’s sakes, why are you always using my words_ —”

 _“I can’t help it! You inspire me, Mariah… Sweetheart. Beloved. You_ know that _all my songs… they’re all, every time, every word, about you.”_

Mariah letting out a somewhat charmed sigh, opening the door, rolling her eyes at Tessa, and reaching for her, all apparently at the same time….

After a few moments, Mariah: _“You know…_ _you absolutely can’t write a song about… this…”_

Tessa: _“About_ this _?”_

Mariah: _“Definitely not about… Jesus Christ, Tessa… god… yes…_ that…”)

The song that Tessa had debuted earlier that evening at Underground, which yes, as always these days with her compositions, was _about Mariah_ , was really more of a “story” kind of song. Not one conveying sensation, as such, Tessa thinks now, sweeping her hand around the perfect curve of Mariah’s hip as she holds her, nuzzling the back of her neck gently…

With time on her hands when she was _doing time_ , Tessa had come up with the Mystery Chicago Lover track — well actually, officially, it’s entitled “Sanctuary”, after the bar the two of them met in that first night; but to Tessa, it is always “MCL.”

(And sometimes, she imagines that the “M” is in fact for _Mariah_ , and then, thinks of what the “C” and “L” _could_ stand for…).

 _Sanctuary_ , had, of necessity, been a song composed in Tessa’s head, scribbled on scraps of paper torn out of the back of library books (Mariah seemingly more horrified about this confession, when she hears it, than the details of Tessa’s actual crimes — those were, she will later declare, understandable, in context. Tessa herself will in turn understand this understanding from Mariah better later, when she learns more about Mariah’s own past — _but_ the wanton vandalism of literature is apparently beyond the pale, even for someone who once pretended to be her dead sister to drive her own mother crazy….)

Denied her guitar in jail, only getting paper when she effectively stole it, because jail is fundamentally a human rights violation in action, _ya know_ , Tessa had hummed the melody of her new song to herself, whispered the evolving lyrics under her breath.

Had been told to _Shut the Fuck Up,_ and had replied: “Oh, OK — you want to try me?”, and declared: “ _Shut me up_ , then — if you can!”

Because, however tough you do or _don’t_ feel, you can’t let anyone push you around in that kind of place. _That_ would be a sure-fire way to go under.

There was no-one on the inside to keep her company. A couple of women seemed interested, at a guess, but Tessa wasn’t, and anyway, all behind-bars relationships seemed overly dramatic from what she could tell from what went on with others, an easy way to get caught up in fights or other nonsense, even if she had been inclined to start anything up with someone, which she wasn’t really; because nearly every night that Tessa spent on her own in that little bunk bed in the “big house”, she was thinking about _MCL_.

The person; not the song.

( _Mariah_ … _Cries Liberally?_ I mean, it’s true.

 _Mariah… Comes Loudly…_ one hundred per cent verified.

 _Mariah Can’t Like…._ And leaving the end hanging. _Me? The Thought of Us Ever Seeing Each Other Again?!_ )

 _But if I do write a song about Mariah’s touch_ , Tessa considers now, continuing to kiss the back of Mariah’s neck as Mariah mumbles her enjoyment at this attention, _it will need to get across the fundamental elements of Mariah:_ which is to say, both fire and ice.

 _Fire_ for Mariah’s passion, for the wildness, for her hands moving all over Tessa’s body in a way that is insistent. That said, she is always patient, always communicates the wanting of Tessa without any pressure, without ever even beginning to cross any lines. But, then again… sometimes Mariah’s hands and mouth can draw out and mark, deliciously, _exactly_ where _certain lines_ might be.

All of this, taken together, is evidence of a quality so rare, Tessa wasn’t even sure it even existed, or if she would like it even if she found it: someone who _pushes_ her, but only just as much as Tessa wants to be pushed.

Now, she finds, for whole hours at a time, that she can barely think of anything else but exploring that line…

But she guesses they will have to know each other better. She can sense Mariah holding back sometimes; careful not to show too much of a certain side of herself too soon. Well, they hardly know each other, after all; tonight has been only their second time sleeping together. And now Tessa considers whether they’ve had more sex more times than they have had proper conversations…

Fire is there, too in the simmering hint of anger Tessa had felt when Mariah had been drawing out pleasuring her earlier that same night, in an almost torturous manner.

“Is this because I… I… _made you wait_? For… a reply… for us to see each other again?”

Tessa on the cusp, and held there, begging for relief and Mariah denying her.

“A little. Perhaps. Part of my motivation. A girl has feelings, you know… But mostly? Mostly, _just because_ ,” Mariah had told her.

Yes, Tessa wants to know more about that side of Mariah. _That side of that line…_

And then, there was the _ice_. For just how cool and collected Mariah can be, the casual way she exerts and maintains control, even — no _, especially_ , in bed. For the same act, in fact, of not letting Tessa come, not until Mariah decided she wanted it to happen.

_Pretty stone cold._

Also ice, because quite frankly, the woman’s hands and feet are _goddamn freezing_ sometimes.

“Poor circulation,” Mariah says, as, she turns over in Tessa’s arms and reaches out, and Tessa expresses her shock at the two ice blocks that have apparently been attached to the end of her lover’s arms again. “Sorry.”

Tessa takes Mariah’s cold right hand, presses it between her own hands, tries to transfer heat.

“You know what, I don’t think I’m helping here. I think I’m just making myself colder...”

Mariah smiling at her, moving her other hand moving down Tessa’s body, her fingers spreading their chilly but not unwelcome touch, somewhere lower…

And then:

“You know, I wondered… What’s this from?”

“Mhmm?”

Mariah is running two fingers gently over the jagged scar on Tessa’s hip, and now Tessa makes a sudden movement, feels Mariah's surprise as she reaches down instinctively, reflexively, her hand hovering over Mariah’s. Over where she had been been _marked_. 

“Oh… _that._..” Trying to keep her tone light, hearing that she's not quite succeeding. “An accident.”

Noah had believed Tessa when she told him that it was from a childhood accident. A fall off a bike, she thinks she had said; something innocent and wholesome.

But Noah believes every word Tessa says, truth or otherwise. 

And Mariah is not her brother. She didn’t grow up in cosseted privilege; is not, Tessa already knows — albeit they haven’t gotten into the chapter and verse with each other — without her own demons. And now Mariah frowns; is unconvinced.

“Does it hurt?”

“No. Well, sometimes. Not right now,” Tessa tells her, but Mariah lifts her fingers and breaks the contact, all the same.

“It doesn’t look accidental, Tessa…” Mariah says. “What happened...? You landed on something sharp?”

Tessa shrugs. “I… can’t really remember. Must have done.”

Tessa can see the look in Mariah’s eyes.

Perhaps Mariah had seen the look in her own.

_She’s not buying it._

This isn’t what she wanted. For the tone to shift like this. They had been… well, not _having fun_ , that’s too frivolous for what they’re doing tonight, but they have been so physically close, and even as close as Tessa emotionally _can_ be, haven’t they? — she thinks; there’s been a true connection between them. She feels as intimate with Mariah as she is capable of being.

But now… Now Mariah wants to _know things_. And there are _things_ that _Tessa doesn’t tell people._

“It’s nothing, Mariah”, Tessa says. Trying to sound dismissive, relaxed. Once again, getting it wrong. Hearing fear in her own voice, somehow.

“Someone hurt you,” Mariah says quietly. 

A statement. Not a question. 

And she’s right back there, right back at that godawful house, that night —

“… A long time ago”, Tessa says, at last. “And it’s really not that bad.”

“ _Not that bad?_ ”

“Yeah, I mean — I’ve had much worse happen to me than that,” Tessa says. “I mean that _looks_ bad, but…”

Realises, as so often, the moment the words are out of her mouth, that she’s said entirely the wrong thing, said exactly the kind of thing that will not reassure her lover at all, but instead have Mariah saying:

“ _What?”_

— her voice possessed of a tone that Tessa has never heard from her before, and with one word, one look, showing a kind of hurt on Tessa’s behalf, that Tessa’s barely ever seen from anyone at all.

“Let’s… let’s not talk about it tonight,” Tessa says. “ _Please..._ ”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

That last night, Tessa’s dad had had a “friend” over. They were all to stay upstairs, none of them were to go downstairs tonight, he told them, or they’d be sorry. That includes you, Tessa, _dumb fuck who doesn’t listen._

But then —

They are all upstairs, Tessa is reading, and almost able to concentrate, but below, it’s a couple of bottles of whiskey later, judging by the repeated sounds of the clinking glasses, and her dad’s ever-raised volume of speech, and then he’s stomping up the stairs.

 _Walk past, walk past, keep going_ : Tessa wills disaster to skip their door — for her dad to need the bathroom, to be ready to pass out in bed; but there he is, throwing their bedroom door open with a crash.

He never respected their privacy at the best of times. Certainly not when drunk. And he is drunk tonight, _very_ , slurring his words, and telling them his “friend” wants to say to hello to Crystal.

So, if she could _get down the fucking stairs and be nice to him_ , already.

Tessa leaping from her bed, to block her dad’s way to her sister. Crystal sitting up in bed, staring.

“Hell, _no_.”

“Excuse me? Did I ask you?” Her father leaning in close, his breath stinking of booze; his eyes bloodshot, blazing. 

“No. But, _I’m telling you_ , dad.”

Crystal was barely fourteen years old. What did _some random guy_ want with “saying hello” to her? Tessa _could guess what_ ; and it wasn’t good.

She’d been thinking, for a while, of how their dad’s friends seemed to be changing a little — up until now, they had mostly been low level drug dealers like he was, or so she had thought, wannabe gangsters going nowhere, and they lived in a dump after all, it was hardy like _Goodfellas_ or _Scarface_ or any of those films she watched that she shouldn’t have (like either of her parents gave enough of a shit to do something like monitoring her viewing habits) — where at least, crime seemed to pay, for a while anyway… They lived in this hellhole with mold and roaches, there was never any food in the place, they were constantly broke…

But lately, something had changed.

Different people at the house. A different air about them. Didn’t seem like dealers. Not even addicts. Another category altogether. A worse one...? And they’d started to look at her, Tessa thought.

But not Crystal, surely not Crystal? _She was too young…_

 _“_ Leave Crystal alone,” Tessa told her dad, and he turned his head to the side and now, to her surprise, he was nodding, almost seeming to agree.

Almost smiling.

“Hey, you know what, Tessa? You know something? You’re right, actually. I think I will. In this situation, it’s probably better if you are the one totake care of _our guest_. He asked for Crystal, but I think he’s more in the mood for a girl who knows what she’s doing.”

 _“What?_ ”

“Oh, don’t act the innocent with me, _you little slut._ ”

Still that half-smile on his face, but his fist was ready for something. To hit her, to grab her…?

“You think I don’t _hear things_? Huh? That it? You think your old man is stupid, I don’t know what my own daughter is? I know what you’ve been doing with everyone in the neighborhood. Half the guys around here. And women too, right? You’re going dyke as well?”

At that age, Tessa could count everyone she had done anything sexual with, male and female, on the fingers of one hand; but for so long as her father was denigrating her, she could handle it. Just words. Tessa didn’t care about what her dad said, any of it. Not then, not later.

Yeah, her Dad's insults, Tessa could take. But then there was — and hell, maybe it was because she had always held out that bit of hope for her mom that it hit the way it did. Tessa always had what she knows now to be a naïve idea, she was a baby, thinking that her mother would one day come through for her, for all of them, in the end, that she would get her shit together and look out for them, defend them, stand up to dad, maybe even get them out of there. Some part of Tessa had always thought her mom would step in, when it mattered, and stop the bad things from happening.

So maybe that's why, even though her mother's words aren't as vicious on the surface as her father's, it cuts ever the more deep when, after Tessa goes to her for help, tells her what her dad is trying to make her do, Tessa hears her say:

“ _Tess... c_ _an’t you just go along with it?_ ”

No, Tessa doesn’t want to tell Mariah this story.

Especially not how it ends.

Not tonight.

She is saved by Noah, in a way. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Tessa’s phone is ringing, and the name of the caller is coming up on the screen, and both of them are looking over to see it, and any moment between them is broken by the flashing word:

_Noah._

“I should get that.”

But Tessa doesn’t move, not for a few moments. Seems to Mariah to be steeling herself, to be summoning up courage, to answer.

When she finally does, she’s adopted a breezy tone. It would almost convince Mariah, if she were Noah. But she is not, of course, her brother.

“Hey, no,” Tessa says, on the call. “You didn’t wake me… I was… writing a song.”

Mariah registers it: how readily the line is delivered. How easily the lie comes.

“Oh, all done? Great," Tessa says. "Can’t wait to see you...”

“Love you too,” Tessa ends the call with.

 _Truth or lie_ , Mariah wonders, as Tessa hangs up.

“I have to go", Tessa says.

“You know… you don’t _have_ to,” Mariah finds herself saying. “You don’t, not really. You could just… _stop this_ , right now. _You_ could… _we_ could…”

“I’m married to him, Mariah.”

Mariah’s _painfully_ aware of that _absurd fact._ Says so.

Asks: “But why, Tessa?… why _him_? Why _marry_ him? Just… tell me.”

Mariah hears the words, and she knows they're not untrue, but they're not the _whole truth._ Are they?: “You know, your brother… he’s a good guy,” Tessa says. “He’s never… He's not like other…"

Mariah thinks about that scar Tessa won’t tell her the truth of. _And that’s not the worst of it._ What has happened to her, in the past? What is she saying? That other men… even women, maybe, have _what?_ _Abused_ her?

“ _No-one_ has ever treated me so well…”, Tessa is saying.

“You know, Noah’s not the only person who would do that. Who’d make you feel safe,” Mariah mumbles, finding she is fighting back tears.

“I know,” Tessa says softly. “But… I can’t leave him…”

Maybe it’s the alcohol. Maybe it’s the situation. All common sense is telling Mariah that she should let Tessa go, for good, let go of this whole crazy situation. But it's impossible. Everything, and giving her up, too.

“You want us both to keep _pretending_ … ” Mariah finds herself saying.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 _Pretending_ : Mariah’s word, Mariah’s choice of how to frame things. Not a word Tessa would use, not tonight. No, she isn’t telling the full truth to some of the questions Mariah asks; not yet. That will take a little longer.

But since the hotel room door closed on the rest of the world earlier that evening, and they could really be together, the two of them, Tessa can say that for once, no, she doesn’t feel she has been _pretending_. She hasn’t had to fake the way she feels, not since they ended up safely shut away from the world here.

No faking. Not in any respect at all... 

(Later, Mariah in _fire_ mode:

“ _You_ _told him you were writing a song?!_ ”

But in a way, that was true, Tessa will argue. She was. The one she’s always writing in her head, about she and Mariah…)

Tessa gets home a mere ten minutes before Noah. Just enough time for her to grab the quickest of showers, brush her teeth, and almost literally leap into bed, before her husband opens the front door.

Noah’s tired after his night of conference calls, but he is not so exhausted, as he slides into bed alongside her, that he doesn’t gently reach for her, to see if she’s really too fast asleep for anything to happen between them tonight.

Not in a pushy way, not that. Noah is never demanding, and certainly never forceful. Noah always takes no for an answer, and no answer, for no. Like she had told Mariah, he treats he so well. He really is sweet, and he’s never taken advantage of her.

Noah’s hand slides around her waist. Tessa doesn’t move, keeps her breathing at its steady, dishonest pace. It’s far from the first time in her life that Tessa’s feigned sleep. She is, of necessity, an expert in all kinds of bedroom artifices these days, and Noah — bless the guy’s heart — has never been anything other than an easy mark. As is his nature, Noah believes what Tessa wants him to, and so, tonight, he quietly, gently, readily seems to let go any idea of making love to her. He just holds Tessa close, gently kisses her shoulder. Doesn’t try to touch her in her “sleep”, doesn’t attempt to wake her. And it isn’t long before he himself does fall asleep, Tessa feeling the pressure of his touch slipping away as he drifts off.

Tessa gently drops a hand, runs her fingers over the rough skin of the nasty scar, deliberately inflicted, and shaped like a butterfly, that lies over and around her hip. Thinks of years past.

Drops her hand further. Runs her fingers between her own legs softly. Thinks of Mariah, approximately an hour ago.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Mariah wakes in an unfamiliar bed. Sun is streaming through the windows. Somewhere nearby, she’s not immediately sure where, her phone buzzes, insistently and somewhat angrily. 

Mariah stretches out hands and fingers, legs; sweeps limbs around. Opens her eyes slightly to check: _confirmed._

She’s on her own. 

Not unusual, after all, and Mariah’s pretty used to sleeping alone by now — she much more often wakes without company, than with, of course — but this morning, it doesn’t feel right. There’s something immediately wrong about the empty bed, other than the fact it isn’t her own. 

_Tessa isn’t here._

Mariah misses her, suddenly, fully. Fragments of memory spin in her mind.

Last night.

The bar. The bathroom. The alleyway. The cab. The hotel room… _this_ hotel room… 

The two of them… together… 

And then Tessa had left. Left _her._ To go back to Noah.

_She’s really going to choose him…?_

Mariah’s phone buzzes again. _Wherever it is._

Mariah stretches a hand, searches the side table next to the bed with her fingers, not quite being able to open her eyes fully against the morning sun, closes her hand around her cell, drags it in front of her bleary eyes.

There are several notifications from Hilary: three missed calls and four texts. The messages, firstly, tell Mariah to get to GCBuzz already; secondly, ask where the hell is she??; thirdly, query whether she still wants her job; and finally, advise her that Hilary has found a random person off the street who is an immeasurably better reporter than Mariah is or ever will be, so she may as well not bother coming in. 

Another text arrives now: “You had better be on your way!”

Mariah sighs, checks her other messages. One is from Devon, “I had a great time last night. Let’s do it again soon. Xx”

Oh that’s right. She was on a date with _Devon_ , wasn’t she. Officially, at least.

_Well, I had a great time too last night, Devon._

_Just not with you…_

There’s a message from Sharon: “Did you go out early this morning honey? Don’t work too hard. And don’t forget, dinner tonight, 7.30pm.”

 _Why is she specifically reminding me about dinner?_ Mariah feels she ought to remember why, it seems vaguely important; but she can’t recall, can’t grasp what’s meant to be significant about a meal with her mother…?

Despite careful checking, Mariah cannot find anything new in her phone from Tessa. _Isn't that typical —_

But there’s a message thread that — _oh._

4am or so, and Mariah was, apparently, texting:

“ _She was all like, oh, your brother’s lovely and I have to go!_ ”

 _Who the hell’s number is this, exactly?..._ Mariah doesn’t recognise the contact, doesn’t even recognise her own words from last night, is momentarily clueless. Who is this?

“MG” is the person she was texting. Apparently. At least, that's what she has saved in her phone. 

_Wait..._

Mariah blinks a few times, espies the crumpled card on the side table, next to a couple of empty minibar miniatures. The design on the card is a small box, intermingled with some rising flames, and there are numbers carefully inked on it.

Oh yeah. _That’s right._

Mariah rubs her head.

 _MG. Matchbox Girl_... _Lindsay_. After Tessa left to go home to Noah... after Mariah had investigated, assessed, and, it seems, mostly worked her way through, the in-room _alcoholic_ _refreshments…_ she’d had the bright idea to start mouthing off about her love life to someone she barely knows.

Although perhaps that’s better than broadcasting her business to anyone who might tell Noah, or Sharon, or Nick… this is still a small city.

“ _Leaving you alone in bed to go back to a guy? Crazy_. _100% batshit,”_ the reply from Lindsay says. “ _I’d dump my_ — _to be clear, purely hypothetical_ — _husband for you in a hot second._ ”

It was, it seems, this particular communication that prompted Mariah to invite Lindsay… to dinner… at Sharon’s… this evening... with guests of honor, Noah and Tessa.

Mariah lets out a mild howl and shoves a pillow over her own face; dislodging the folded-over piece of paper addressed to her that was sitting on it.

_To be continued._


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The warning at the beginning of this story applies, and this chapter in particular contains references to sexual abuse and substance abuse. Please do avoid if those topics are not good for you (and I hope you are OK).
> 
> Thank you to @FridayinCanada who is ensuring I deliver the chapters on this...

It is late morning in Genoa City. The sky is grey; the bright, early sunlight has slipped back behind gathering clouds.

Noah is gone. Up, and out, and _seizing the day_ already. Back at Underground, fixing faraway problems.

And his wife is home, in bed.

Not that Tessa feels she is, exactly, _alone._

She never does, these days.

This is, objectively, one of the best beds Tessa has ever slept in. If you are measuring by comfort, luxury, thread count; by how many zeros you can afford to place on the price of a mattress — and, even better, if you have an actual bedframe to put that mattress on too, and don’t just throw it on the floor.

But peace of mind, is not so easily bought as are high-end household furnishings out of a Newman family bank account or budget, and Tessa has spent hours, now: not quite resting; not quite awake.

She stretches out, curls up again. Rolls this way and that, drifting in and out of sleep. Thoughts turning over and over in her mind.

It doesn’t matter what she does, how she moves, how she lies... In every waking or dreaming moment, with every breath, and whichever position she takes —Tessa can still feel Mariah. 

_Everywhere_. 

Mariah’s hands, her lips, all over Tessa’s body. Exploring every inch of her, up, and down. Touching her, tasting her. Mariah, breathing her in. 

It was too much. 

_It was not enough_. 

_I shouldn’t be doing this_ , Tessa tells herself _. Thinking of Mariah in the morning. Thinking of her last thing at night…_

And thinking? — is barely the _half of it._ Last night actually with Mariah was… _wonderful._

And _completely insane._

What is she thinking, sneaking around Noah’s back with his _sister_? Is she crazy?! _What is she doing?!_ She shouldn’t be _messing everything up_. There’s too much at stake, and she’s so close now, isn’t she?

To getting Crystal out, and safe, after letting her down for so long. A little longer, a bit more time in this strange little city; of seeming to answer, but in fact sidestepping, at best (responding with bare-faced lies, at worst…), Noah’s questions about her family, her friends, her history, her background, her favorite holiday movie, her _goddamn_ childhood memories… _whatever_ picket fence, candy floss, Hallmark card details her husband asks her for now and then, when he wants to _get to know her better_ , when he starts from a place Tessa has never even visited, never mind lived in…

But it’s just a little longer of going through the motions, of _playing the game_. Playing the man himself, not that Noah seems to notice, except every now and then he sees he has hit one of her boundaries and seems upset she won’t let him in. So she goes away and conjures up more backstory for him.

It is just a bit more time, showing Noah the requisite attention and affection that Tessa does not, _cannot_ , mean a moment of. Certainly doesn’t, is utterly unable to, _feel_.

A little longer, and she and Crystal will have what they need, the means to live somewhere together, and they can maybe even start to think about how to find their sisters, their brother too; somewhere in the system in Chicago, last Tessa heard. The whole enterprise is no longer some sort of fairytale, not now Tessa really has managed to marry a prince — if not by title, then at least by wealth. She lets Noah kiss her, after all, doesn’t she? And he really isn’t so bad, she’s been with much worse, and he isn’t a frog, or a beast, or… _whatever_. Just a regular guy, a nicer than average one, with (sad for him) absolutely _shocking_ judgment when it comes to the female sex.

When she needs to, Tessa lets this guy do more than kiss her, and so what? — What is _the big deal_? — all while she switches off and tries to forget… What Noah _needs_ and _does_? — It really doesn’t matter, does it? Not when she has a bigger plan and purpose. _Look:_ Tessa has been through much, much worse than the attentions of this soft, spoilt boy, _okay? Put it that way_.

It turns out that there really is a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow in Genoa City, after all. Tessa’s seen the evidence for herself, how Noah and his family live. It is the magical Newman money that will fix all the Porter problems, and Tessa is going to take her, and Crystal’s, share. She has to.

And Noah? He decidedly _isn’t Tessa’s problem_ , is he? It sucks for him, _sure it does_ , but he will get over it. He will move on. He can marry another, nicer, girl further on down the line, can’t he? — Tessa will just be a bad memory, a footnote in the family history, a bad idea the most romantic of scions had back in the day…

It shouldn’t matter, not at all, that she feels nothing, _less than nothing_ romantically, and it wouldn’t.

It really _wouldn’t_ , if —

If…

If it weren’t for…

Tessa’s fingers ball into fists against the bedsheets. 

If it weren’t for the fact Tessa’s met someone. Someone who _does_ make her feel. It hasn’t happened often in her life. She has largely assumed it wouldn’t be for her. But…

 _Mariah_ is here, she’s here and now. She’s _the one,_ and it seems the universe won’t let Tessa forget her. She was in the bar in Chicago, she’s in this _stupid, small, dumb town_ , she’s, _for the love of God,_ if God exists, and Tessa doubts it, what she’s seen, what she’s been through, if he does then he’s a sadist — Mariah is _Noah’s goddamn sister,_ she will be there at the family dinner tonight, won’t she? Yes, and now, Tessa fears Mariah will indeed be around every corner, and sitting in the corner of her mind like she was sitting in the corner of that bar, every day and night from now on.

 _Will you listen to yourself?!_ Tessa’s fists clench tighter.

 _Feeling something_? So what? You have feelings, now? What are they? A _luxury_ , that’s what it is, a goddamn _mirage_ , one that will collapse into dust compared to _safety_ and _security_. _Those things you have now, that Noah gives you, that Noah’s money will give you more of._ Tessa has never had such things before now, and it’s stuff Crystal still only _dreams of_. Feelings are, let’s face it, the kind of thing Tessa cannot afford— certainly not at her sister’s expense.

 _Mariah? She was a_ _fling. You don’t even know her, even if you’re family now. She_ certainly _doesn’t know you._

 _And you know what?_ _Maybe all she wants me for now is an affair_ , Tessa thinks now, the cold light of day making itself literal, as the morning sun, which had been temporarily back in business, now takes the opportunity to slide back behind that cloud again, and Tessa herself slides back under the covers.

 _I’m risking a whole life with my sister,_ our future, the life she deserves _, that I_ owe _her, for god’s sake — for wild nights in bed with Mariah? Is that what I’m doing?_

Yeah, sure, so the sex — _okay, more than that —_ the _intimacy_ is so good that in other circumstances, and were this another universe, another timeline, another story _— were_ _you even with your husband for the right reasons_ , Tessa reasons with herself, _you would consider doing the right thing and leaving him, because you can’t stay married to a guy when his sister makes you feel like_ this.

But in a strange way, the fact that Tessa’s marriage is an utter sham makes it all the more complicated.

 _Sure, the way Mariah makes love even makes you feel a little stupid, even more angry at_ past you _than you have been in the past, thinking of the sex you_ kind of _wanted, the sex you_ kind of _didn’t…_

 _Leave aside the sex you_ really _didn’t want at all. That’s something else, and you know you don’t think about that. Not if you want to get through the day, the night…_

Unbidden, Tessa thinks of Mariah’s fingers gently caressing over even that terrible, ugly scar, Mariah knowing, even without asking _(and she did ask),_ that it wasn’t the nothing, the non-event that Tessa had told Noah.

Mariah saw the story. Asked for it.

Most people Tessa had been to bed with, didn’t.

But Tessa’s never told anyone, and she doesn’t know how to explain — what words to use? How to put those words together?

She isn’t supposed to think about it, not if she wants to keep herself together, but —

“ _It’s you or your sister to keep our guest company_ ,” Tessa’s dad had told her. “ _Your choice_.”

It was, of course, no choice at all…

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“And what time do you call this?” Hilary asks, as Mariah makes a highly futile attempt to sneak past her into the GCBuzz offices, succeeding for all of zero point zero seconds in not catching her boss’s eye.

“Well I don’t know, Hilary, let’s see. _Time you got off my goddamned case?_ ”

An intern somewhere in the background raises her eyebrows skywards; then sees the look on Mariah’s face, and Hilary’s posture, and swiftly makes herself scarce.

Hilary feigns taking a step backwards in surprise. “Oh, _really_ nice way to talk to your boss when you’re… now let _me_ see… two and a quarter hours late for work. And there was me thinking you had been doing so much better lately.”

“I was out… um… working on a story,” Mariah says, with a wave of her hand, wondering how quickly this dressing-down can be over with, so she can go to the kitchen and sit and guzzle aspirin and coffee for a few minutes at least, before Hilary starts another round of _“why Mariah is the worst._ ”

“A story? What about?”

“Uh…” Mariah’s throat is dry, even after the two bottles of expensive minibar water she had downed this morning in an attempt to sober up. “Modern… relationship… dynamics.”

Hilary gives her a look, as if to say, _so you got laid last night, that’s what all this horseshit is about?_

“Oh, really? You don’t say, Well, I really look forward to this _story_. _Love in the modern climate_ , as seen by Mariah Copeland. Sounds like a real eye-opener. Truly.”

“There’s a lot of facets to it,” Mariah mumbles, asking the universe for a black filter coffee to materialize in her hands. Well, in a mug or cup, ideally, which in turn is in her hands… _is this specific enough for the universe to do her a solid for once and grant her goddamn simple wish…?_

“I should say, _speaking of love and romance and such things_ …”, Hilary says, “ _these_ arrived for you.”

Hilary gestures to a beautiful bouquet of flowers that Mariah now notices are sitting rather prominently on the table before them. A mix of seasonal blooms, the choice of colors delicately complementing one another, all clearly selected, and arranged, with elegance and taste. There are yellow and white flowers that Mariah isn’t sure she can readily identify without the internet, but which are truly lovely. Purple iris — is it? — is the only flower Mariah thinks she recognizes from the memory bank in her own mind, at least while so caffeine-deprived.

And now Mariah feels her face grow hot; and it’s not the dregs of last night’s booze, which even after consuming a full, daylight-robbery-level, fifteen bucks of hotel water is still swilling around her system — nor is it even the thought of last night spent in bed with Tessa — but imagining who, exactly, would have sent these to her _work_.

“It seems someone at the front desk simply _assumed_ they were for me, which I have to say is indeed entirely logical… “ Hilary shrugs, “and so they were delivered to my office. It was only when I _read the card_ that I realized… the mistake that had been made.”

There’s a particular edged meaning Mariah can hear in Hilary’s tone, which Mariah more fully understands when she reads the card for herself.

“ _To Mariah,_

_I had a great time last night!_

_Beautiful flowers, for a beautiful woman._

_Hope you like them._

_Devon xx_ ”

“You know, it’s funny… I did hear something on the grapevine about Devon asking you out, but I was thinking that maybe I should get my hearing _tested._ So I’m here wondering… Is your ‘story’ going to cover different types of behavior on a first date?”

Hilary has adopted a mock-innocent tone, and now places her fingers under her chin in a mock gesture of thought to boot. “I mean, I have to say that I _personall_ y usually wait until date number _three_ , at least, — which I would say is customary — to show up at work the next day looking rumpled and disheveled... doing the _walk of shame_ …”

“ _For your information_ , Hilary, Devon and I didn’t…” Mariah stops herself, and draws a line in the air with her hand, as if under the conversation. “You know what, I don’t even know why I’m explaining myself to you.”

The dull ache in Mariah’s head is now becoming a throbbing pain; the need for substances to kill, or at least deaden, the sensation, is ever more urgent. She has a brief thought of trying the hair of the dog… _but that’s not right, is it…_

“Oh, _you don’t want to explain yourself?_ Well, okay, I have to say it wasn’t exactly what I had _scheduled_ for this morning, but it appears incumbent upon me to remind you how a job _works_.”

 _An espresso, please, that’s all I ask…_ just a little espresso. _Surely the universe can deliver that up??_

“So, here’s the deal: _you_ show up _here_ at a pre-appointed time, and provide _services_. In exchange for those services, you receive _monetary compensation_. One of the _conditions_ that is imposed on you is…”

Mariah has tuned out. Her headache is full-on pounding, now, and worse, wavy black lines are starting to appear before her eyes. It seems Hilary will continue in the same vein for another couple of minutes, and Mariah uses the time to engage in a very recent flashback: thinks of those fleeting, brief seconds just moments ago when she had imagined the flowers might even be from _Tessa._

 _A frankly idiotic flight of fancy on my part_ , Mariah tells herself. Not for the first time, she feels somewhat embarrassed by the private thoughts she is having, in her own mind, to which no-one else has access. Why would Tessa _send her flowers_? A public acknowledgement of private feelings, and actions, that they have to keep secret, and you know what, maybe Tessa even already regrets what happened between them last night. She got out of that hotel room so quickly, after all… True, Tessa had kissed her before she left, full on the lips, hard and deep and meant, it _felt like_. But she had still gone, hadn’t she? Back to Noah…

There’s so much Mariah still doesn’t know about Tessa. The jail story…? _There must be more to that_ , Mariah thinks. And that scar she has…? _Someone hurt her, on purpose, and she won’t talk about it…?_

But then again, Mariah muses, _have I told Tessa everything about myself?_

Hardly.

 _And yet there I was, doing the dirty on my own brother_...

What was it Hilary had been saying about, well, _putting out_ on the _third date?_ _What does it say about me,_ Mariah wonders, _about me, and Tessa too_ , _that we haven’t even been on a single date yet at all_ and yet —

“I said, _do I make myself clear_?” Hilary is standing looking at Mariah expectantly, and apparently finished with her lecture, at least for now.

“Um…” Mariah begins the journey to the kitchen, to the blessed relief offered by the coffee machine….

“Crystal,” she says.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Crystal,” Tessa says.

“What?” Noah looks up from his laptop.

Tessa couldn’t take the silence at Noah’s place — at her _home,_ as it apparently is — a moment longer. She can’t come up with songs in that kind of stillness, can’t do anything at all. Her thoughts get too _loud_ in such a quiet place. She’s gone to Underground, told Noah she needs the better acoustics for her guitar or whatever, and joined him for brunch.

Now she locks her phone quickly and sets it on the table. “Oh… just… a message. From, um, a friend of mine. Crystal. From back in Chicago. Haven’t heard from her in a while."

“Oh, right.” Noah smiles. “You haven’t talked much about your friends…”

 _The message didn’t sound like my sister_ , Tessa thinks. Not the way Crystal would write, at all. _It must have been written_ for _her, not_ by _her..._

Tessa tries to smile back at Noah. She knows her smile is a weak one, but he doesn’t seem to mind.

“Well… you know how it is, with friends,” she manages to say. “You have one group at school, another at college… you don’t always stay in touch how you’d like.”

 _“You need to give these guys a fuller update on how it’s going with NN.”_ That’s what the text, supposedly from her sister, had said. It was off, way off. Nothing like Crystal’s snappy little messages and thumbs-ups, not at all…

“Oh yeah, the circles we all move in are always changing, that’s for sure. Although, you should know, in this town? Seems like it’s always the same small group of people you keep running into, every place you go. And they’re all sort of related to you? — at least by marriage. Kinda weird.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Tessa says, with a fleeting thought about one in particular of her relatives by marriage again, before she picks up her phone to type a quick reply.

_“I will do. Are you okay?”_

There’s no reply, at least not right away.

Tessa can now just hear the echoes in her mind of her own words: she had said “school” and “college”, like these were regular, straightforward things in life that she had experienced, in the natural order of things. Stuff she had accomplished, as kids do. _School and college_. Not things she had never finished and never even started, respectively, graduating from either, being something she’s only ever seen on TV.

That hasn’t stopped Tessa somehow convincing Noah that she majored in music at some private liberal arts college, a ludicrous piece of subterfuge that she doubted he would buy even as she was coming up with it.

But it seems he believes anything and everything she tells him. Like:

_I majored in musical composition._

_I was at home last night waiting for you._

_I love you._

“It will be fantastic to meet some of your friends,” Noah says, smiling. “When we get to it.” He lifts her hand from the table, kisses it softly.

Sometimes, Tessa feels these little moments of affection, the gentler deceptions on her part, are harder to take than the sex.

Which is only sex, after all.

“And your family,” Noah says.

It’s a white hot pain, that’s what it is. Tessa’s back to that night. To the knife. To finally being broken.

“Sure”, she manages.

Taking a little long to say it.

If Noah sees this, hears this, he doesn’t mention it.

“Well, you will get to know my mom and dad better tonight. And Mariah too, of course.”

“Of course,” Tessa says. “Can’t wait.”

“It’s so crazy, that it turns out I still have a big sister… after Cassie,” Noah says.

“I’m so sorry about that,” Tessa says quickly.

She can’t imagine losing a sister.

_She can’t lose her sister…_

“Dad was, _is,_ so heartbroken about her. And Mom too, of course, but Dad… I don’t know. It’s like he _chose_ to love her, you know? And then she gets ripped away.”

“It’s really tragic,” Tessa says. And it is. She means what she says, this time.

“I guess, what happened... contributed to… well, their break-up, in the end,” Noah says, a sadness in his voice. He changes tone, with:

“Your parents are still together, right?”

Tessa sips water before she answers. “Yeah,” she tells him breezily. Almost with a smile.

She doesn’t add: _I remember their wedding day, I was maybe seven years old...? And as far as I know, they were still legally married when I got the hell out of there, years ago now. My sister stuck in a sex ring has never mentioned any divorce…_

Nor does she say, that she doubts the guy her mom has been with all these years, who her mom _tells her_ is her dad, the man who claims himself to be her father, really _is_ her father; and that she suspects he’s not Crystal’s real dad either. There’s that wedding day, when she was already old enough to recollect it happening, although of course some couples have kids and then get married, so it’s not a slam dunk… but Tessa has some inconsistent childhood memories, too, of where they lived in the early years. Weren’t she, her mom and Crystal on their own for a time…? She’s sure she remembers living in a different part of town, no dad around at all, just the three of them. A happier time. Still broke as a joke, but her mom not using, mac and cheese for dinner and trips to the park and no looming threat anywhere… Then there’s the paperwork she had stumbled across when searching her family home for the rent money. Information she can’t match up…

“It will be great to meet your family,” Noah says, squeezing her hand.

Tessa snaps back to the present.

“Ah, well”, she tells her husband. “Further on down the road. Like I told you, it wasn’t always… great. At home.”

The implication Noah has drawn — because it’s the one that Tessa wanted him to — is that there has been some kind of minor rift with her mom and dad. “ _All a bit awkward”,_ that’s the level she pretty much pitched it at and what he guesses at.

It has not been implied, of course, that Tessa ran away from home at seventeen because she had _no other choice_ , and that she hasn’t seen or spoken to her parents since.

That her parents have allowed Crystal to slip into the clutches of people worse than they themselves are, than the guys they didn’t protect Tessa from. Than the guys they did _quite the opposite_ of protect her from.

“I’m sorry your parents weren’t there for you as much as they should have been,” is Noah’s take.

Tessa isn’t sure whether to laugh or cry when he says this. What does he think? That mommy and daddy cut the sums in her trust fund on account of what, a little hard partying?? Too much smoking pot and fooling around on summer break? That they didn’t let her go to Aspen one time, because she spent too much on their credit card?

 _Surely_ Noah cannot really think that he and she, the two of them, are from the same kind of place, in _any_ sense, or have the same kind of experiences?

But she has to be fair, at least in a limited sense, to Noah. That they are, to an extent, at least, from similar backgrounds is part of the story Tessa has set out to sell him. Part of how the _Tessa Porter_ , no, _Newman_ , she is still selling him; with the fake accent she is using, the revised history, the corrected timeline she has had to write down and hide away so she doesn’t get too much of it wrong.

She can’t suggest her family are Newman-level rich, of course, that they have anything like the luxury and opportunities Noah has known his whole life — she at least has to keep it somewhat believable— but as per the instructions she has been given, she is to make herself and her background seem perhaps a little shadier than his — keep him intrigued by the excitement and mystery and so on — but nevertheless, comfortable, solidly middle-class. Perhaps a little _nouveau riche_ , a touch of crassness here and there in the mannerisms compared to what he is used to is a given, but they are upwardly mobile and aspirational, and that was the Newmans themselves a few years ago after all, wasn’t it? — or so her briefing had told her.

There’s this whole other world Noah lives in, where hard work by others did generate results, which he now reaps the benefits of, and she sees him pretend he himself he is working hard too, even while he gets a chain of nightclubs handed to him on a plate…

But the Newmans have had, Tessa’s been told, only a couple of generations of little princes: just Noah, and his father Nick, who Tessa hasn’t met yet, but will tonight. Tessa hears the patriarch of the family, Victor, and his wife, came up a little different to their children, and grandchildren _(Noah and Mariah are brother and sister. But Mariah isn’t a Newman…)_ There’s even a rumor she’s heard, that Newman isn’t even the real family name ( _relatable,_ Tessa thinks…) and some craziness about the grandma being a stripper back in the day…? ( _like I can judge that,_ Tessa reminds herself…)

But Noah himself, is pure privilege. And when Noah talks about his dad, Tessa hears admiration, a desire to impress; a need for the son to assert himself as his own person, distinct from father, and grandfather, of course. He clearly loves and admires his father, and seeks his approval, even if he doesn’t realise that’s what he is doing.

This is the kind of father Tessa has intimated that she herself has, too. Someone who wants, and expects, the best from their children, but who always manage to show love and support. Not at all the type of man to abuse, _hospitalize_ , his own children ( _if Crystal and I are even his,_ Tessa thinks), and never make anything better for them ever, at all. _Quite the opposite._

Yeah, so. A happy if mildly middle-class dysfunctional upbringing, that’s what Tessa is selling. And Noah, it seems, is buying it.

“My family did what they thought was best,” Tessa tells him now, trying to keep her voice level.

_They did what suited them._

Tessa looks back down at her phone. No new messages.

“I’m moving things along”, she adds to her previous message. “Family dinner tonight. Nick, Sharon, Noah.”

She swiftly locks the phone again, but Noah isn’t looking at what she’s doing. He is engrossed in whatever is on his own computer screen.

 _Perhaps it doesn’t even enter his head_ , Tessa thinks, _that the woman sitting across from him_ , _could have the secrets I do._

Truth is, she’s told Mariah more about herself in a couple of nights, than she’s told Noah in a couple of months of being his wife. And not just with her words, either.

Mariah knew that that scar Tessa hides, with high-waisted jeans, tops pulled down low, was no accident but deliberately inflicted. Didn’t she? Straight away, she could see. And Tessa was so close to telling her, the story no-one else knows…

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It’s after rendering herself suitably caffeinated that Mariah remembers the paper in her jacket pocket.

 _It’s the digital age, but maybe women who love women are more into old-school communication methods_ , Mariah considers. First there was Lindsay’s card with her number handwritten on it, and now this: the note Tessa had left her when she had, well, _left her_. 

Mariah retrieves the paper and unfolds it. At first, she isn’t sure what she is looking at. Most of it, is words written in faded ink, but there is what appears to be some newer, fresher, ink, running along the top.

 _I’ve been carrying this around with me,_ the more recent wording says. _I don’t know why. Maybe I had a feeling I would see you again?_

And underneath:

_You should know that I wrote this song for you._

Mariah rolls her eyes. Sips coffee. Sighs a little. Reads the song lyrics. Sighs a bit more. Picks up her phone and hovers over Tessa’s number. Puts her phone down again.

 _Has she torn this page out of the back of a book??,_ she wonders.

Mariah’s phone buzzes. MG. _MG…?_

Oh, yeah. _Lindsay._

“We still on for dinner?” the message says. “Only I won’t hold you to it, I figured you were out partying last night or whatever…”

“Definitely,” Mariah replies quickly, without giving herself time to think.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Without giving herself time to think, Tessa had gone downstairs, quickly.

But if she _had_ thought, she would have told herself she could handle it. She had taken what her dad had dished out to her, hadn’t she? She had endured that and survived. She’s had sex she doesn’t really want, with guys she isn’t sure about. She can handle that too, and if it’s to save Crystal then she will do _that_ , if it comes to it, but maybe it won’t…?

So strange, now, to think of how she had thought back then. How little she had guessed.

It was that very last night at the place that was meant to be her home; but “home” should be somewhere safe, shouldn’t it? Like on those TV shows with kids her age, played by actors much older; characters who had parents who laughed and joked with them, and who were there for friendly advice, for a caring and understanding pep talk at the end of the episode before the credits rolled. 

Parents with jobs and values and basic standards of human decency, who didn’t drink until they passed out, or get so high they didn’t remember who you were. Who didn’t break your arm, or bust your head open, because they had a bad day, or you looked at them the wrong way, or just because they _felt like it_. 

Home was meant to be a place where people you trusted took care of you, and parents were supposed to be people who protected you from the bad things in life. 

They weren’t meant to invite monsters in. 

_To deliver you to them_.

If it had just been her, maybe she would have made a run for it. Grabbed the bag she had stashed, thrown her boots on, ran for the bus at the end of the street…

But knowing that if it wasn’t her here in this room, it would have to be Crystal...

Some of it, sure, she could figure would happen. Maybe she wasn’t ever going to be top of any classes even when she was in them, but she was not naïve, it was impossible for her to be that, with what she had been through. She knew what this guy was about, this guy sitting in her parents’ living room like he owned it. But maybe —

_Maybe it would be OK._

The stupidest thing she had ever thought, out of a long list, in probably her entire life.

“Want a drink?”

The man inclines a bourbon bottle in her direction.

Tessa knew this guy didn’t she? She had seen him before. He’d been to the house before, even. One of her dad’s “friends.” He was dressed well, and not her father’s usual type of company. Maybe he was someone important…? Not a low-villain like her dad. Someone with some power, perhaps.

“I’d drink it, if I were you,” the guy said, in a tone Tessa had never heard before, from anyone.

Tessa is seventeen years old. She’s been drunk maybe twice in her life — a couple of parties she shouldn’t have been at. She’s seen what this stuff does to her dad. How it makes him.

“I don’t really drink,” she told the “guest.”

“It’s what friends do together,” the guy told her. “ _And I hope we will be friends_.”

Later, there’s no alcohol Tessa ever tastes that will blot out what that guy did to her. No drink that will help her forget. Eventually, she finds something that does. Something stronger than booze, more dangerous, that _does_ take the pain away. It’s just that it takes years of her life, too…

But that night, she doesn’t have anything at all.

Tessa does not have the words for what this man did to her. Not then, and not now. She can say, _brutal,_ perhaps, but that hardly captures it. He took the world, Tessa, apart; rearranged it, and her, and left them different, afterwards. She didn’t exactly ever feel like the most complete of people, but after that night, after _him,_ Tessa will for so long, think how she is missing a piece of herself.

This guy — he never says his name — is not like those boys who pawed at her, pushed her into sleeping with them when she was unsure — that boring, mildly painful at first, sex in the back of cars, or in the park, or in their bedrooms, while she thought of other things she could do, other places she could be, other lives she could live. That wasn’t great, but she could take it, she could deal with that; didn’t even realise, until the first time she slept with someone who actually cared, a girl, as it happened, that it could be different.

But this…

This isn’t that.

Even her dad’s beatings hadn’t broken her. Those repeated assaults from someone she should be able to trust, who should defend her from others? They didn’t to her what this man does.

She’d never been hurt like this, she’d never been degraded like this. Made to feel like nothing. _Less than nothing._

Like something he could just _use._ Not even a person…

Afterwards, he gripped her bunched-up T-shirt in his fist, pulled her in more closely to him, told her, almost softly, almost gently, in his terrible, low voice: 

_“Let me show you what I do to all my girls_.”

The knife, it has more than simple, rough edges. It is, instead, all sharp lines; vicious, jagged swerves that immediately make Tessa feel a little sick. Tessa tries to look away from the blade; to the white handle, instead.

Carved ivory, most likely, Tessa learns later, when she can’t sleep one night, searches online, looks for and finds pictures of something similar.

“Your girls?”

It sounded like someone else had said it. Tessa doesn’t recognise her own voice.

“You’re going to be working for me, from now on.”

“I’m not. And I’m not yours,” Tessa told him. She still had that in her, at least. 

But it was the last thing she said to him.

And he almost smiled.

“Yes, you _are_ , Tessa. You are now. And this”, the man said, “will _show_ that you’re mine... So that, even when — _especially when_ — you’re with someone else, they can see who you _really_ belong to.”

It’s illegal, now, the ivory trade, Tessa had learned. You can’t do it anymore. Hurt wild animals, kill them, to make things like that. 

“That was deliberate,” Mariah had said, looking at where he had marked her. “This wasn’t an accident, Tessa. Someone hurt you...”

 _You got me,_ Tessa thinks. 

_Someone did._

She was out of there, that same night. Without even stopping to think.

Grabbing the bag, throwing on her boots, out of the door, down the street and onto the bus. Leaving Crystal behind... not even seeing, or feeling, the blood seeping through her clothes until much, much later….

And that was the place she left Crystal. No wonder she ran in the end too, even if right into danger. _What else could she do?_ Tessa tells herself she has got to get real. Stop this craziness. She’s been so selfish! Messing around with Mariah isn’t going to save her sister.

She will go to this dinner, tonight, won’t she, like she has to? — and smile and nod, and get through it. And not look Mariah in the eye.

Well, that was Tessa’s plan, anyway.

But of course, Mariah has her way of ruining those.

_To be continued._


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Belated update... Chapter 12 coming soon. Thank you for the comments and continued reading!

Does growing up in the grip of a cult have its downsides?

 _I mean, sure._ Mariah can, naturally, testify as to _those._

The extreme psychological control. The spiritual coercion. And, when you are born into that sort of life — or at least, abducted and forcibly recruited into it at such a young age, that you don’t know the difference — it isn’t so much that your _sense of self_ is stripped away, that you experience that ritual taking apart of a person, and reconstruction in another’s image, that had been the hallmark of the converts, and which Mariah had seen in action, over and over…

It’s that you _never really have any true sense of yourself to begin with_.

Then there had, of course, come the day, when Mariah had finally seen the true colors, in stark relief, of the man whom she had considered, growing up, as a father figure, as well as her spiritual leader. Trying to learn who she was, the person who she _could_ be, Ian had always been there, and hadn’t he always seemed like he had wanted to _help_ her, to _guide_ her, to _show her the way_? He was not just older and wiser, not even “just” a leader, but a true inspiration, a force of nature — or so it, so _he_ , had seemed.

Without doubt, he was the man Mariah had even trusted more than any other.

But then, it had been Ian who had, for his own reasons, for his own desires, and seemingly out of nowhere, decided that it was not only entirely reasonable, but in fact positively the _right thing to do_ , to present Mariah with the _perfect husband_.

Which, to Mariah’s considerable horror and bewilderment, turned out to be _Ian himself._

(Later, in dark and solitary and very private moments, Mariah would think: _was the whole thing_ really _out of nowhere?_ Weren’t there _signs_? _That I should have seen? Of how he really saw me…?_

And even: _did I_ myself _give him some kind of sign? That I might be someone he could do that to?_

 _That I might…_ want _it…?_ )

The systematic program of mind control that this same, insane individual had exerted on his intended for almost her entire life was beginning to wear off, now that Mariah had been able to spend time with people who were not members of Ian’s demented stab at a value system, and Ian had realised that Mariah was not _entirely_ on-board with his sudden, unilateral plan for wedded bliss. And so he had kidnapped her and drugged her. His final, crazy roll of the dice.

 _He wouldn’t hurt me_ , _not really_ , Mariah had thought, even at the time, even as the insanity unfolded before her, as Ian’s designs on her had become clear, as she realised what he had done, and planned still to do. _He wouldn’t_ , had been what Mariah had told herself, over and over; and it was what she still tried to think, even now. She hadn’t been in any _real_ danger at any point. There was no way…

There were lines Ian wouldn’t cross.

(Weren’t _there_?

_What if it had gone another way?_

But it didn’t, it hadn’t. _It never would have…)_

Now, as a grown woman, not a child, and fully out of Ian’s grip, Mariah is free to do anything she likes. To believe in whatever, in _whoever_ , she wants.

So, why then, with all this freedom, with, officially, no-one pulling her strings, does Mariah sometimes feel an almost deadening lack of purpose. A lack of direction, a lack of point to everything. To _anything at all_.

 _It would be good to know that there was some higher logic to all of this._ Some reason why she’s here. Not just in Genoa City, but _on this planet.._. Because having been lost, and found, and now in her adopted home city with what’s left of her biological family, Mariah sometimes, somehow feels _lost again._

One thing you _can_ say about all those vital, fundamental and formative years in the clutches of a more-clearly-disordered-than most-mainstream-religions-pseudo-belief system — well, yes, a _cult_ — if you must — created and run by, it was true, a _narcissistic sociopath,_ was that you _did_ always have a reason to wake up in the morning. You always had somewhere you felt you _belonged._

Mariah doesn’t voice all of this aloud.

But some of it, yes she does, and she _does_ end with:

“At least a cult makes you feel _wanted._ ”

“Well, _gosh_ ,” Lindsay declares.

Mariah stares down into apparent clouds swirling in the drink set before her.

Lindsay shakes her head, as if to clear a thought from it. “I... guess that’s… a _point_. That can be made. In favor of, um _cults_. You know, Mariah, you kind of have... a _unique_ way of seeing things.”

They are at Lindsay’s bar ("not really _my_ bar, I just work here"), The Matchbox ("watch your life go up in flames! OK, not funny, sorry, Mariah") in the late afternoon, after Mariah has spent most of her day pretending to do work, to achieve things, and to be productive.

Truth is, she has spent the entire day barely concentrating on anything at all, not able to think.

Except about how empty her life seems sometimes.

And also about Tessa Porter.

Mariah is free, now. She can do whatever she likes, and yes, she can _be_ with whoever she wants. No-one is forcing her to be with them, no-one is compelling her down the aisle.

But then again, Mariah thinks, that's quite simply because _no-one is that crazy about me._

And that’s a _good_ thing, obviously. Of course it is.

But then again, she’s no longer special. If she ever was.

_I am not anyone’s first choice._

Even Devon, the most eligible guy in town and consummate gentleman, is trying to keep his mind off his feelings for someone else by asking Mariah out. And they both know it. Mariah can look ahead, can see how that attempt at a romance between them would play out, perhaps in some parallel universe where they _do_ give it a try: the two of them going through the motions, working through the stages of intimacy together; and perhaps lasting a few months, maybe making it to a year.

All the while, trying to distract themselves with each other, when their hearts and minds are elsewhere…

And as for Tessa — because, _whaddya know_ , Devon as a diversion doesn’t work, she’s back to thinking of Tessa already — well, Tessa has chosen Noah, hasn’t she?

Mariah hasn’t, after all, spent all day pining after _Tessa Porter_.

Nope.

She's wasted another 24 hours of her life on Tessa _Newman._

“You’re really stuck on this girl, huh…” Lindsay looks at her. 

Mariah has hit the bar so as to steel herself with Dutch courage, that is to say Jamaican rum, that is to say _whatever form, brand and provenance of alcohol_ is readily available, for an evening imminently required to be spent witnessing her brother and her lover making lovey-dovey eyes at each other over her mother’s dinner table.

“Trying saying that five times fast after another three of those,” Lindsay says, gesturing to the cocktail she's just set in front of her current best customer. “Speaking of dinner … you’re still sure that you want me to come along tonight?”

“Yeah, yeah, definitely,” Mariah says, with a wave of her hand. “Sharon — my mom — she said I could bring a friend. And honestly, I don’t think I can sit there on my own... I mean, not _on my own_ , but you know… _with all the family_ … and Noah… and Tessa…” 

“See this?” Lindsay extends the index finger on each hand and points firmly back at herself. “Right here? You’re looking at the perfect _buffer_.”

“Buffer?”

“You can stick me right in the middle of the whole thing, and I will deflect, and distract. Leave it to me. _Your job_ is to not stare at this Tessa chick all night.”

“I won’t be staring… at Tessa… all night,” Mariah says.

It hadn’t sounded any more convincing in her head, than how it comes out.

“Well, I will be there to try to draw your eyes away from this girl”, Lindsay tells her. “And I back myself in these types of situations.”

“Really? Have you been in a lot of these situations?”

Lindsay pretends to stop and think. “Let’s see. Drop-dead gorgeous women with complicated love lives, inviting me to dinner so that I can help take their mind off things? I mean… I don’t like to brag... but a _few_.”

Mariah has a sudden, Noah-related, pang of guilt. _Complicated love lives._

“I guess this all sounds like I’m being really awful to my brother, huh.”

“That’s... what you got from what I said?” Lindsay looks at her.

“No… I…. It’s just — I’ve never — there’s never been anyone...”

Mariah doesn’t have the words to explain what’s happening with Tessa to Lindsay, or anyone. Including herself. 

“You like her,” Lindsay says. “A lot. I get it. No doubt she’s hot — I mean, a woman like you wouldn’t need to settle for any less — and I mean, that first woman…” Lindsay emits a low whistle. “Yikes. I totally understand.”

 _First woman?_ Mariah thinks. _Like… there will be others?_

“But I would, pausing my skills as a mixologist for a moment here, suggest you keep it simple, and recommend some pure, unadulterated fun _._ ”

The only other occupant of the bar, who had been sat quietly nursing a glass of rosé in the corner for an hour or more, finally finishes her drink, and, with a semi-salute, semi-wave to Lindsay and Mariah both, steps out into the early evening of Genoa City.

“Fun…,” Mariah echoes, quietly, as the door closes.

“Yeah. _Enjoying yourself: a concept._ ” Lindsay sweeps her hand in the air, as if to sell a slogan on a movie poster, and looks Mariah right in the eye.

Mariah’s single. That’s how it is. And she hasn’t _been with_ anyone except Tessa in… how long? A year, now? She doesn’t _want_ to be some sad individual pining over a woman who has chosen Mariah's little brother over her, which let’s face it, is exactly who she is right now, isn’t it?

Lindsay’s obviously flirting. And sure, she probably does that with every other woman who walks into this bar, but she’s gay, or bi at least, and she must be “ _out_ ”, mustn’t she, to work somewhere like this? Has to be highly unlikely to have a husband. All points in her favor.

And she’s good-looking, and good company, and unlike with Devon, who Mariah really, really likes as a person, but can’t feel any true attraction for, there’s something there, a little frisson between them of some kind.

Mariah doesn’t _need_ to mope over Tessa, does she? _No, she doesn’t!_ Mariah could just lean over the bar right now and kiss Lindsay. If she wanted to. _And_ _I mean, if that were in any way appropriate_ , which it probably isn’t, given Lindsay is working, and Mariah is a customer, and, well…

Mariah thinks of last night in bed with Tessa. _It was impossibly good._

She thinks of Tessa leaving her to go back to Noah. What is she, a married woman’s dirty little secret? _It was, it_ is _, agh. Ouch. And so on and so forth._

“These things can be complicated,” Lindsay says, her voice low, even though they’re now alone. “But they can also… be really _not_ complicated at all.”

And it’s Lindsay who leans over the bar and kisses Mariah softly; a kiss that is something between _friendly_ , and something _more_. It’s closed-mouthed, gentle, but very much full on the lips and deliberate, intended, and meant. It’s not the blast to the senses that Tessa’s kiss was, or, if last night was anything to judge by, _still is_ , but it stops the runaway train of her thoughts for a few seconds all the same, Mariah thinks, and she’s wondering whether to respond, to kiss her back, when Lindsay pulls away, and the door to the bar opens again.

“And here’s Kelly. The evening shift,” Lindsay says, nodding to the woman who enters the bar with something of a wry grin on her face — having witnessed the tail end of their kiss, probably, Mariah thinks.

“Nearly time for my night off. And _yours._ ”

“Mine?” Mariah can still taste Lindsay’s lip balm, what is that, _strawberry something_ ; she licks her lips without thinking.

“From all this _Tessa drama_. Tip for you: just keep looking at me,” Lindsay says. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Welcome, welcome,” Sharon says when she opens the door. “Nick’s already here.”

Noah’s dad, Noah had said, was “totally fine” about the marriage, when Noah had gone to tell him the happy news in person earlier that day, and Noah himself seemed content with that; but Tessa registered the exact level of response: that the reaction hadn't been “delighted” or “excited." She sees Nick appraise her now, as she walks in, and they meet for the first time.

He is sizing her up, in a similar way to how Sharon did, but with a man’s eye; and Tessa wonders what he sees, and what he thinks. His son is soft, sensitive, and loyal. But Noah is also naïve, and whilst, from the family history her new husband gave her, Tessa knows Nick grew up just as wealthy and privileged as Noah did, there is, perhaps unsurprisingly, more wisdom and experience in his gaze, in how he looks at her; and Tessa feels a little exposed.

This is the kind of guy who would make her feel nervous, in other circumstances. He reminds her of someone…

“Mariah not here yet?” Noah says.

“On her way. Bringing a friend,” Sharon tells him, and Noah smiles knowingly.

“Oh, you know who it is!” Sharon places her hand gently on her son’s elbow for a moment.

“I have an idea.”

“I do too,” Sharon agrees. "I'm glad to see something is finally happening between them."

 _Devon,_ Tessa supposes. Although Mariah hadn’t seemed that into him last night…? Not given how the night had ended…

But perhaps Mariah needs someone to sit next to, and balance out the energy in the family. When sitting opposite the former Mr and Mrs Newman, the _new_ Mr and Mrs Newman…

It’s not like she is in a position to judge who Mariah wants to spend the evening with. 

It's not like she has any right... to feel... _what does she feel?_

“Tessa, a pleasure. Noah tells me you’re from Chicago?” Nick says, all at once, whilst handing Tessa a glass of wine. His tone is a pleasant neutral, but his question feels more than casual and conversational. Like his words are going somewhere.

“Yes,” Tessa says. “Sure am.”

“Whereabouts?”

There is no point in Tessa pretending she is from money. She knows this; she will be easily found out if she attempts to give the false impression that her family were, are, anything like as rich and successful as the Newmans, or even halfway to that sort of level of fulfilment of the American dream. But Tessa doesn’t want to give herself away in other ways, either: to disclose her time quite literally on the streets, for example, the sort of detail she has actively kept from Noah so far.

(Tessa does not quite realise, at this point, that as well as those things she has opened up and told her, Noah's sister, by a process of assembling those jigsaw-piece details, those breadcrumbs of information, that Tessa tends to inadvertently drop when her guard is down, might be able to put some of this together, sooner or later. Tessa knows her carefully assembled barriers are not holding, not when Mariah is around; but she doesn't quite appreciate what this will mean for the entirety of the rest of her life). 

The retconned backstory Tessa has adopted for herself and intends to convey further tonight, is that she grew up comfortably, but unremarkably, middle-class. This, she thinks, has to be at least plausible, and it has worked so far. If there are any gaps in her cover story, then Noah doesn't seem to have noticed; or if he has, he has not been concerned enough to confront her. Nick, of course, is a somewhat different prospect. She has worked on her accent, she wants to be a performer, after all; the one she uses now is not natural, but the one she had deployed during the jewelry store scam back in Chicago. It sounds a little weird even to her own ear sometimes, but at least it is different to her real one. The one that slips out now and then during private time. Like when she’s in bed with Noah’s sister… She mustn't drink too much tonight, her tongue can't be too loose...

“Hyde Park,” she now tells Nick.

Of course, this is a lie, but she can hardly tell the truth. Tessa didn’t grow up in the part of town with the goddamned university in it. She is from the South Side semi-slums. But Tessa _did_ stay in Hyde Park for a short time, with someone. She knows the area slightly; it seems safer than naming an area she doesn’t know at all.

“Hyde Park… That’s where the History Museum is, right?” Nick says, his expression unreadable.

“Science and Industry,” Tessa says, after the faintest of pauses, and with a smile. “History... is Lincoln Park.”

Nick nods to acknowledge that he has been corrected; although something tells Tessa he knew already that he was wrong. _Was he trying to catch her out?_ Noah’s dad is, already, hard to read; he is not the open book his son is. Nicholas Newman is the type of guy who makes Tessa apprehensive, exactly because he could be one thing in public, and another in private. Her own father was not like this. Say what you like about the guy ( _disgusting, abusive piece of shit_ , would be one of Tessa's suggestions and if you don't like that, she has others), but he was incapable of duplicity.

But she's met other men who came across the way Nick does now, a smile on their face and something else behind, and she tells herself to be cautious of him. Not that she quite thinks him capable of some of the things she has been through from other "family men"; surely not. But still...

"Welcome to the family," Nick tells her now, and again, his tone is hard to discern. "We'll do a proper toast, when Mariah gets here."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

When Mariah thinks of family — the people, the roles, the relationships — this is not something instinctive, as it seems for others. Ask someone to think of their mother and whether she is still alive or not, whether a person can stand to be in the same room as the person who gave birth to them or not, the response will often be visceral one, or at least in some way emotional.

But Mariah is still learning who her family are. Half of her _nuclear family,_ as they call it (a crazy term for it, Mariah has always thought, _I mean it’s something to do with the core_ , she supposes, but doesn’t it connote other things? Explosions. Radiation...) — well, they are dead. Her “real” father is gone. So too is the twin sister Mariah’s been told she is at least in theory identical to; but can’t replace. Only Mariah and Sharon are left.

The two of them don’t exactly have a full, or at least, conventional, mother-and-daughter relationship, either, not that one of those was ever likely to materialize. It was always too late when they finally met for that to ever really happen, after all of that lost time, and however hard they try to make up for it. However many times Mariah knows Sharon has forgiven her for her mistakes, made allowances for her failings, the two of them will never quite get there, Mariah thinks. She will never stop saying “Sharon” most of the time, instead of “mom.”

And what of the rest of the “family”? Noah and Faith, Mariah’s younger half-brother and -sister through Sharon, both have Nick as their dad, in biology and in upbringing, and Mariah sees how the shape of their lives is so very different to her own. Leave aside the stability of being able to pick both of your parents out of a line-up any day of the week, what's more, both are Newmans; and while Mariah gets on with these mostly wholesome, good-natured kids, and certainly sees them as truly her siblings, she sometimes isn’t always the best at the “big sister” role. Take the present circumstances, for example... would she be longing for the wife of a brother she had properly grown up with, or _does what she was doing last night with, to, his wife;_ _letting, asking, encouraging his wife do to her..._ speak to the fact that she and Noah aren't really so close after all?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"I don't want to talk about it..."

_Tessa has retconned her own backstory._

"But someone hurt you..."

Mariah had been gesturing wildly, wanting answers.

Tessa is a liar. She's a fraudster. She's a cheat. That's enough. 

_(Is she? A cheat?)_

_When she is with Mariah?_

_Or when she is with_ _Noah?)_

A con artist... Someone who sleeps with a woman, and then with that woman's brother too...

Not a victim.

A _villain_.

_That's better._

Cutting off Mariah's questions with a kiss. "Not tonight." 

Standing in her mother-in-law's house the next night, Tessa is drinking the wine her father-in-law had brought, nodding at her husband, and thinking about how good his sister tastes. His sister, who they're all waiting for. His sister, whose tongue, hands, fingers do things to Tessa that no part of Noah ever can.

She does things with Noah. Of course she does. She lets him do things to her. Tessa must make him feel like he really is newly-married and all that goes with it. Her instructions are clear; Noah Newman is not to suspect a thing. Like her accent (and her school absence notes, and a series of checks all the way from GC to NYC with a big detour to California and Nevada), she forges and fakes the physicality, too, and what it means. It's not like she hasn't done it before. So Tessa lets Noah physically inside her, because she must.

But even via half-truths, the full truth is that she's let Mariah in deeper already.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

_OK, so Mariah isn't going to win Sister of the Year anytime soon._

But the wider Newman clan treat Mariah like part of the family only when they want something from her. Victor Newman has Gatsby-esque piles of money and everything that it can buy, after all. Not just _things;_ things are the least of what he and his children and grandchildren can acquire. _Things_ bought with ready piles of cash are simply toys for those with no imagination. Power, status; these are the true trappings of wealth. The Newmans' position is what they are really paying for.

What is mostly left to demand from Mariah is her unwavering loyalty. _Swearing fealty_ , Mariah thinks, whenever she is in the presence of Victor or Nikki, as though is she is required to pledge her allegiance to the lord and lady of some medieval kingdom, rather than existing in the semi-orbit of… what are they to her, exactly… once, and perhaps, given the way Sharon and Nick are on-off and likely always will be, future, _step-grandparents?_

And so, it is via her mother’s particular romantic choices some years after her own birth that Mariah gets all of the drama, and none of the benefits, of being a _sort-of-offshoot_ of a modern dynasty. She’s a more permanent part of the furniture than Sharon’s boyfriends, or husbands (the ones who aren’t Nick), perhaps; but really not so very important, and largely ignored, unless and until she does something that might impact the Newman reputation.

Mariah is simply a sort of “extra person”; the semi-welcome guest, one who isn’t _quite_ ever told to make herself feel at home.

And not just at Victor and Nikki’s, Mariah sometimes thinks. Even having found her “real” mother again, moving in with her, she can never be _quite_ sure she’s home.

Speaking of which... 

“Sorry.” It's already after the time to leave, Mariah’s glass is empty, and she’s spilled her guts again. She pulls on her coat. “We'd better go. And I… guess you didn’t need my whole life history.”

Lindsay smiles, slightly, bites her lip, continues her careful look. “No, actually, Mariah, I’m glad to hear it. Sounds like you needed to get stuff off your chest. And, it’s all useful background for this whole, dinner, deal tonight." She pauses. "I’m also available for weddings, and bar and bat mitzvahs.” 

“Well _, thankfully_ , the wedding part of this whole…” she searches for another word, finally just expels her first thought of: “ _shitshow_ , is out of the way. I suppose I should be grateful to some random chapel in the desert for the fact that I didn’t have to sit through _that_.”

“Hmm…," Lindsay says, looking thoughtful as they walk to the cab. "Sounds like they were in a real hurry to get married.”

“ _A hurry_?”

Lindsay shrugs. “Well, don’t you think? As you told it, running off to the middle of nowhere like that, without a word to anyone?”

_What is she saying?_

“Just wondering what the big urgency was.”

“Well… Noah said it was… a whirlwind… thing…” Mariah says, hearing the doubt in her own voice. “I mean… if you're thinking... I'm not thinking... any kind of... Tessa’s been drinking, I mean, _alcohol_ so it’s not like she can be, you know…”

"Yeah, and people don't really get married because of that anymore. Unless they're like super-traditional, which, well, it doesn't sound like it." Lindsay shrugs again as the cab pulls away. "So it's some big super-romantic deal, right? And _yet_ …”

Mariah’s mouth, her throat, feel dry — which seems kind of impossible, given how much she’s been drinking. “Go on,” she tells Lindsay.

“Well… what I’m hearing is, your brother and this Tessa girl met and got married _really fast._ Lightning fast. You had no idea about any of it, your mom didn’t either. So, sure, maybe Noah swept her off her feet, maybe he’s as cute as you are…” Lindsay raises her eyebrows.

“But then, pretty much first chance she gets...", she continues, "Tessa is back in bed with _you._ "

The cab driver glances in his rear view mirror very quickly, makes eye contact with Mariah, and looks away. 

"Now, no offence to him, but maybe Noah doesn't _do it for her_ ," Lindsay says. "Very possible, let me know tell you, what straight men get away with is... _astonishing_. But there could be another explanation. I mean, I’m just thinking, is there _some other reason_ that Tessa would marry your brother? She _could_ be polyamorous," she adds. "On which, you know, no judgement. Although I wouldn't recommend _siblings_ for that kind of thing..."

"Some other reason?" Mariah says.

"Well, people do things for all kinds of reasons..."

It seems like it's been staring Mariah in the face, but now someone else has spelt it out... Mariah makes herself confront it. Tessa isn't Tessa Porter... She's Tessa _Newman..._

"I can think of several million of them," Mariah concedes in a murmur.

Mariah's done her best to arrive to dinner as late as possible, and will exit as early as is politely possible. She's brought company to make the whole thing more bearable. But it still feels like it's going to be a very long night...

_To be continued_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Credit for helping me get some of the details right in the chapter, and to be honest, the chapter appearing at all, to @FridayinCanada.


	12. Chapter 12

If Sharon is taken aback to discover that her daughter has brought a female friend as her plus one to the family dinner, rather than the expected Devon, then she is classy enough, experienced enough as a hostess — _or as a mother, perhaps?_ — not to show it. At least, not so far as Tessa can immediately tell.

This isn’t the night for Tessa to take off from _reading_ people, is it? Not the night when her best performance to date will be asked of her; the night when she needs to convince Nick and Sharon that her intentions towards, her feelings for, their beloved son, are genuine. Romantic. _Meant..._

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 _“Mercenary”,_ Mariah will say, later that evening, when no-one else can hear.

They are standing so close to each other. Not touching, but almost.

If any witness could see the two of them; if they noted how they’re almost touching, but yet not… and saw how they react to each other… well. They might well wonder if there is something more going on between these sisters-in-law, than just a simple family feud over what is best for Noah.

Mariah, in furious mode, eyes ablaze, suggesting Tessa is up to something or other.

_So what’s new?!_

Tessa takes in Mariah’s demeanor. Not for the first time, she considers that she isn’t actually sure she can _really_ dislike angry, accusatory Mariah. Certainly she’s never met anyone who scares her less when they’re apparently as mad with her as Mariah is, now.

Perhaps that is because, somewhere in the back of Tessa’s mind, she knows it is not rage, but _other emotions_ , that are spurring Mariah on.

“ _Mercenary. That_ is how I characterize your motives, Tessa. What you’re doing with my brother, if you want me to spell it out, is… you’re _using him_! On account of your… avariciousness.”

Tessa should be turning on her heels. She should be, or at least _act as though she is_ , offended. She shouldn’t even deign to engage in this exchange.

If she knew what Mariah was talking about.

And if all she didn’t want to do was to step forward, to taste the wine she knows will be on Mariah’s lips...

 _Did she say… viciousness? And… what,_ mercenary _?!_

Tessa imagines the montage of scenes, the accompanying music: waving goodbye to Noah, sending him off to be a hired soldier overseas.

She stops, takes a moment, realizes what Mariah is getting at.

That she’s with Noah _for the money._ That must be what she mans.

Well. That’s _kind of_ true. But Tessa’s not playing the gold-digger (and here, certain other, selected, _choice_ , words for herself, who she is, based on what she’s been doing with Noah, for months, flash through Tessa’s mind…) for the sake of it. Not for her own personal amusement.

If Mariah thinks she just wants the money _for herself_? So she can go sit on some beach, or the deck of a yacht, and drink a few cocktails, size up her next mark… No! That’s _really_ not how it is.

_If she could just explain…_

“It’s not like that, Mariah.”

Mariah, already turning away from her, throwing up her hands, as if to dismiss the whole idea of even discussing something that she herself had confronted Tessa about.

And Tessa thinking: _but, when it comes down to it, I can’t tell her_ how _and_ why _I really married Noah, can I?_

And then, Mariah turns back, says:

“And you’re using _me_ , too.”

But that’s all a couple of hours, and a couple of bottles of red, from now.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Back at the beginning of the evening, in a measured tone, and with continued apparent poise, Sharon invites Mariah and — “ _Lindsay_ , is it? Do come in…” to where the rest of the dinner party are waiting, and offers the surprise visitor a drink with a friendly and polite manner.

It is fortunate, Tessa thinks, that no-one was looking in her _own_ direction when the front door to the cottage opened, because she suspects that the poker face she had carefully adopted for the evening flickered and faltered, when she first saw Mariah and her guest.

 _I can’t get distracted by Mariah tonight_ , Tessa thinks, but somehow, she wonders if it isn’t already too late. She feels as though she has been caught staring when she looks over at the attractive blonde Mariah has brought along, and sees that the blonde is looking right back at her. As if sizing her up…?

Tessa averts her gaze quickly; suddenly takes a very keen interest in the pattern on the rug on the floor.

 _Not straight_ , her instincts have told her, immediately, about Mariah’s friend.

_And not just a friend._

It’s not just the fact that this woman in the company of Mariah, who Tessa knows very well, intimately, _isn’t straight_ either; but something in this woman’s manner, how she carries herself, and her way of interacting with those around her, sends a clear signal to Tessa that Lindsay is interested in women, and in Mariah in particular.

She glances up at Noah, Sharon, Nick, tries to gauge their expressions. _Do any of them see what she sees?_ Perhaps not. _Probably_ not.

Tessa would certainly be surprised if any of Mariah’s family had gaydar.

_I mean, Noah certainly doesn’t._

But has Mariah really brought a lesbian date _tonight_? And is Tessa the only one who realizes, so far? I mean surely... she isn't... dating this woman? Is she?

Not that, of course, Tessa has any right to _object_ to that or anything. Not that she would. She's married, isn't she. 

_But wasn't it only last night that Mariah was on a date with Devon?_

It was.

 _But then, it was only just last night Mariah was in bed with me_ …

Tessa’s intended sip of wine becomes an anxious gulp as her memory bank throws up a sudden reminder of the multiple sensations invoked when Mariah’s head is between her legs, just when Nick is trying to engage her in conversation again.

Seeing her moment of discomfort, Nick frowns for a fraction of a second, before turning to Noah instead.

“Your sister really is a very interesting person,” Nick muses aloud to his son, at low volume. “Unpredictable.”

“So typical of her to bring some random person tonight,” Noah says, equally quietly; but he’s smiling, seems amused, rather than angry or bewildered.

“Very on-brand,” Nick agrees.

“You don’t know her, but, it’s really very _Mariah_ ,” Noah now says to Tessa, still sounding entertained more than anything. “You really never know what she will do. I mean, this for her? Not even a little crazy, by her standards. You kind of just have to go with it.”

“Go with it…” Tessa echoes.

“Yeah, you know… _expect the unexpected._ Enjoy the ride.”

“I’ll bear that in mind,” Tessa tells her husband.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

She couldn’t exactly say that she had _expected_ , last night, for Mariah to kiss her. _Something_ was happening, something building between them, but somehow, Tessa still hadn’t really seen the kiss coming.

But looking back, and in the cold light of day, it seemed obvious that it _had_ to happen. It had been that way so many months ago in Chicago, and it was the same last night too. Each night the two of them had spent together, months ago, and now, and each first kiss; each time Mariah had closed the gap between the two of them and reached for her — and everything that came afterwards — all now seemed somehow inevitable.

And something Tessa couldn’t, _didn’t want to_ stop happening.

_Enjoy the ride._

Tessa barely knows Mariah. Perhaps she knows her a little better than her husband suspects. But she knows how she feels when she is around her. Like _anything is possible._

 _When had life ever felt like that?_ Tessa wondered.

Mariah kissing her, fully in public, out in the street, _was she crazy?!_ Anyone could have seen them. _But then, am I crazy, too?_ Tessa wondered, thinking of how she had kissed Mariah right back, without hesitation, not even caring, in the moment, about the consequences.

In bed, Mariah had been just the same as the first time they were together. Urgent, even a little demanding. Qualities that, were they brought to the fore in other people, other lovers, would make Tessa nervous, make her look _quite literally_ for the exit; made her wonder if she could even be what that other person was looking for, after all. If she could really go through not just with sex, but with selling the idea that _being wanted_ was something _she_ wanted.

But with Mariah, everything felt natural, and instinctive. Tessa was guided by feeling, not by thought or design.

The critical aspect of it all, the key element, the most unusual, near-unique feature of the two of them together, was fairly simple, and yet so meaningful.

Tessa found that _she wanted Mariah right back._

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It’s a kick to the gut. A blow to the head. A shot, of vodka, tequila, _absinthe_ ; something potent, neat and undiluted, right to the gullet.

The sight of Tessa, that is.

Seeing Tessa in Sharon’s house, in _Mariah’s own home_ , smiling, standing around chatting with Noah and Nick, as though she’s part of the family — _which she is_ , _of course_ — Mariah feels like she has been hit by a ton of bricks, or possibly a semi-trailer headed for The Matchbox, one laden with crates and crates of gin. 

Last night had been spent in one kind of a frenzy or another, and ended with Mariah getting left on her own. Somewhere in the middle, was some of the best sex of her life. 

There was, of course, only one other sexual experience that could possibly compare.

The previous occasion on which she had ended up in bed with Tessa.

“You okay?” Lindsay murmurs quietly, as they move to sit down, taking their places as per Sharon’s seating plan. Everyone else is listening to Nick as he suddenly decides he must explain some convoluted Newman family history to Tessa; something to do with who has been married to whom during which years, and who the various children all belong to, and which branches of the family tree have needed to be corrected due to the effect of genuine misunderstandings and misapprehensions, or alternatively, out-and-out deceptions and schemes perpetuated against the family.

“That’s _her_ , I am assuming”, Lindsay says, so that only Mariah can hear, and with the slightest of inclines of her head in Tessa’s direction.

“That’s her,” Mariah confirms.

Lindsay emits a low whistle, from which, Mariah understands that Lindsay clearly deems Tessa to be attractive.

_I mean, there's more to a person than their looks, but... yeah._

“See your issue with that one, Red. Potential life-ruiner.”

“I know,” Mariah sighs. “Isn’t she?”

As she pulls out her chair and sits down without a moment’s difficulty, Mariah feels that she must be sobering up. She will need to correct that. She can’t do _this, tonight, this dinner, this whole thing,_ not without a little help from some chemical or other. 

There’s Noah, looking happy. _He’s in love_ , Mariah thinks, and she should be happy, too, on her brother’s behalf. _Shouldn’t she?_ — but she can’t even look him in the eye.

Then there’s Nick, whom Sharon has decided Mariah should sit right next to this evening. Nick is always so polite to her. At all times, he keeps her at a constant, courteous distance, so entirely proper and correct in what he says, and does, insofar as Mariah is concerned. 

And it’s awful. Mariah can’t stand it. She sometimes wants to just snap at him.

 _Be rude to me, asshole, why don’t you? Do it! Act how you want to act._ Forget, _just for a second, that you always want to keep Sharon on the end of a rope; that you always want to be able to pull her back in when the mood takes you, and so make yourself tolerate her prodigal daughter._

_Tell me what you really think of me, Nicholas._

“Mariah?” Nick says, the bottle in his hand hovering over her wine glass. “Don’t know why I’m asking, I’m sure you’re a yes.”

“You know me!” Mariah says, but Nick is already pouring the Merlot.

 _Tell me I will never live up to Cassie, to the person she would have grown up to be. Tell me_ _that time I tried to seduce you turned your stomach and you've never been able to stand me since. But that wasn't where it started, was it?_ _You can’t stand to see me because I have Cassie's face, and yet I’m the side product, aren’t I? I’m less than a shadow of your perfect girl. A grown-up, gone wrong, flawed, imitation version of the daughter you chose to love._

The wine flows into the glass, Nick filling it to the near-brim.

Mariah takes a sip. She will go ahead and drink it all.

Like he said, Nick didn’t need to ask.

"Delicious."

"Napa Valley's finest," Nick says.

 _Just tell me that the wrong goddamn twin died already, Nick._ _Just say that it should have been me._

Mariah lifts her glass to see Tessa looking at her over it, just for a fraction of a second. And then Tessa hurriedly looks away, turns to look at Sharon, who is talking about the food she has made, or something.

No, Mariah can’t do any of this, tonight, not without _some_ kind of dulling of the senses.

And, most of all, she can’t, fully sober, manage to spend several hours sitting directly opposite from the stunningly beautiful woman she had made love to for most of the previous night.

Hours of touching, and talking. Being close, in more than one way. And Mariah isn’t sure which aspect of the evening had been the more intimate; and which had felt better at the time, or the absence of which, hurts her more right now…

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“It’s nothing too fancy this evening,” Sharon announces, before she runs through a menu that consists of a series of courses that, well, all sound _pretty damn fancy_ so far as Tessa is concerned. 

Noah smiles and nods as if in recognition, as Sharon reels off the list of food, some of which is even in, apparently, some foreign language or other. Not that Tessa can say which language.

She _thinks_ Sharon says zucchini at some point, but then again, she reflects, it might have been something else entirely, so now she can’t ask about _the zucchini_ , because what if it wasn’t zucchini and she just sounds dumb for thinking it was?

She will just have to wait until there is some kind of food she recognizes, and compliment Sharon on how it’s been prepared.

(There follows a few moments of Tessa entertaining in her mind, an idle fantasy in which Sharon serves up Jell-O for dessert, and she finally feels confident enough to venture an opinion on it).

This dinner promises to be as awkward as it sounded, Tessa thinks. She has Noah directly to her left, and Nick to her right. She’s sitting diagonally across from this Lindsay person, who — _seriously, did she just see that right?!_ — now seems to give her a wink when she catches Tessa’s eye.

And Mariah is sitting directly opposite her, already drinking wine like it’s water, and doing a bad job of pretending she’s not looking at Tessa.

Not that Tessa really feels top of her game, either. She is supposed to be at all times playing the charming guest, the happy, blushing bride, winning over the Newmans. She's meant to be using this evening to seem like the perfect, or, at least _a perfectly plausible_ , wife, for Noah.

Instead, Tessa is thinking how Sharon’s dining table, its particular height, the texture of its wood finish, unavoidably reminds her of the desk in the hotel room last night.

Set against one wall, the desk was large, sturdy and practical, and presumably intended for resting a laptop on during important business work or conference calls. That sort of practical and professional thing.

Not for what Mariah Copeland wanted to do to Tessa on it.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Last night, insofar as Genoa City had a heart, the two of them were in it, in the middle of the night, together, in another anonymous hotel room.

It would be pitch-black outside, but for the streetlamps; but the scale of artificial light here is in keeping with the size of the town. This is no Chicago, and indeed it could hardly be mistaken for it. A quirky little city in name, sure; but not in size, Tessa thinks. For one thing, everyone hangs out at the same coffee shop, and for the other, her new mother-in-law _owns_ that coffee shop.

It seems to be one of those places everyone knows your name. _Like that’s a good thing_ , Tessa thinks. It is not like where she is from — not _home_ , that’s not the word, that’s not what she would call it, but Chicago is at least the place she was born and grew up, she will give it that. That city really _is_ a city, it’s a true, sprawling metropolis, somehow comforting in its scale, in the fact you could live there for years and still find streets you’d never ventured down. Shop doorways you’d never slept in as a teenage runaway, even. 

And also, Chicago was the kind of city where, if you were lucky enough to go to a hotel room with a beautiful woman; and, if, for some reason, you had a moment not entirely focused on said beautiful woman to gaze out of the window, you would get that reassuring sight of, well, no end in sight: you would never able to see where the city stopped, not in any direction.

The Genoa City limits are clearly visible without even stepping onto the balcony. Without even getting out of bed. It doesn’t really feel anonymous here. There’s no crowd to fade into.

But maybe it’s not just the fact that they are in a town that is smaller, more close-knit, where there are so many connections between the residents that, Mariah tells her some time later, you have to stop a moment and pause and make sure a potential romantic entanglement isn't with some kind of relative —

("Like, with your sister-in-law?" Tessa, eyebrows raised.

"No, I mean, like, _relative_ relative. Blood relative. Potential or actual incest style."

"Ew!"

"Well, you _asked._.. I'm just saying, around here, you ask a person for their family tree before you get involved."

"Not a bad idea as a policy, though. I guess I should have done that with Noah..." Tessa says)

— maybe it's not just the compact nature of the community that means Tessa feels more exposed, more of an open book, even if at the moment, most of the pages she's offering up to this town about herself are fiction she herself has penned. Perhaps it is, too, that both she and Mariah now have a little better, if still imperfect, idea of the way the other one of them fits into this place, and onto life’s broader stage. The role each has to play. In each other’s lives. In everyone else’s.

“You could stay,” Mariah says. “Or… we, _we_ could just _go._ ”

Catching their breath, wrapped up in each other. From this angle, Tessa feels she can see flecks of gold in hazel eyes. She leans over and kisses Mariah on the cheek. A moment’s calm in the very middle of a storm.

“Which is it?” Tessa asks, which she should not be asking. Caressing Mariah’s shoulder softly with both her fingertips and her lips, which she supposes she should not really be doing, either. “ _Stay_ , or _go_?”

“ _Both_ ,” Mariah says. “ _You_ stay tonight. _We_ can go in the morning.”

“Go?” Tessa hears herself say. She really shouldn’t indulge this fantasy any longer, but then, it’s one she’s had herself. “Go where?”

“Just. _Anywhere_. Across the border. I hear Canada is nice this time of year.”

Tessa smiles against Mariah’s shoulder. “But I don’t like maple syrup.”

“What?!" Mariah turns and glares. "Remind me never to eat your pancakes.”

“Yeah, I could have told you that myself…” 

“Anyway, you know, there’s more to Canada than maple syrup. And Mounties, and hockey, and complaining about how America stole Alaska.”

“You should get a job on the Canada tourism board, I want to go there like, _right now_. Also, _we stole Alaska_?”

“ _Allegedly_ ,” Mariah shrugs, then trembles slightly, as Tessa runs a hand she absolutely shouldn’t be running down the side, and across to the front, of Mariah’s body.

“You’re beautiful,” Tessa says, drawing her fingers over the perfect curves of Mariah's chest.

“Not beautiful _enough_ , apparently…”

“Mariah…”

 _All that stuff, about running away together, is just pure craziness. So, a_ _one-night stand became a two-night stand_ , Tessa tells herself. _That’s all._ No big deal. It doesn’t change anything. 

“You don’t really know me…” she says, as Mariah’s body tenses under her fingers, and she sighs, draws her hand back. 

And that’s the truth, isn’t it? Mariah _doesn’t_ know her. After all, _how can she_? They have been together what, twice? They’ve spent a maximum of 24 hours together, and most of that, was, well not spent swapping life history, put it that way. 

So that’s a total of one day, in an entire life that Mariah really knows _nothing_ about. Ok, sure, Tessa spilt a few details. That stuff about the months spent in a less-than-flattening orange jumpsuit. And, of course, Mariah knows she likes women, and that she has history with them.

One or two little details, then, that she’s shared. They are still not much more than strangers to another, even so.

Albeit, near-strangers who somehow fit together perfectly, physically, in bed. Even like now, when they’re not doing anything at all, but just lying together, sharing silence, in the middle of the night. When they shouldn’t even be doing _that._

 _Even when Mariah’s mad at her, how right it feels to have the_ right person _being so mad._

“I just don’t understand why…”

Mariah sounding hurt and confused? _Ouch._ Now Tessa really wishes she would get mad again.

“I mean… if it’s that... you need someone to...” Mariah seems to try to search for the words, “... take care of you? Or protect you? Maybe… you’re... in some kind of trouble? Or something bad has happened... And Noah, he’s... _safe_ , right? I know him, he’s... he would never...“

Noah, really, _would never_. Tessa’s confident of that, too.

“Because if it’s _that_ , if you need... help? I mean, _I_ can help you, Tessa.”

Yeah. Mariah’s just someone who _barely knows Tessa_. Who still knows more, guesses more, sees more, about Tessa than pretty much anyone else.

Not that it is the time to say so.

Tessa turns away, climbs out of bed, looks for where she and/or Mariah threw her clothes this time. “I can look after myself, Mariah. I’m not some little damsel in distress who needs to be saved by your brother. Or by _y_ _ou_ , for that matter.”

But when she turns around, she sees that Mariah doesn’t believe her, which to be honest, might be because at least some of that was a lie.

Mariah’s questions, her doubts. Her challenges to Tessa’s stories about herself. When Mariah is disbelieving, like when she at once knew the scar was no accident —when Mariah even shows clearly that she doesn’t trust what Tessa says about herself at all, like right now — it’s in those moments that Tessa wonders: is it possible?

That Mariah might be like _this_ because... she actually, in a way that's true and real and matters, _cares about her?_

“Okay. So _why_ , then. Why go back to him?”

And then, somehow, they are kissing again, which is stupid and doesn’t even make sense, because they were pretty much fighting a minute ago, but then again, god knows Tessa can't give a truthful answer to Mariah's question if she wants Crystal to be okay, and, even if she wants Mariah to ever even just speak to her again, she really can't know the extent of the deception she is perpetuating on her brother. So maybe _that's_ why.

Or maybe it's just because they really can't stay away from each other.

But Tessa was in the middle of getting dressed, and now Mariah is out of bed too, asking questions with her mouth in more than one way, and this is silly because Tessa _really does have to go_ , but then, it is always like this with Mariah, Tessa will learn. There is always something happening between them, something real, and the outside world's relevance slips further and further away, every time they are together. 

“Back to Noah. After this?” Mariah asks, her tongue somehow able to do two things at once.

“Have to.” Tessa's words perhaps contradicted by the fact she is kissing Mariah back, anyway.

“Is it like _this_ , with him?”

“For god’s sake, Mariah, how can you ask… what kind of a question…”

Tessa should really be asking questions herself, like what the hell is Mariah doing now, as she feels that she is gently being pushed backwards, but honestly, she can guess. Even before Mariah tries to lift and maneuver her onto the desk, and fails miserably.

“Damn. Wish I was taller,” Mariah mutters, with a sigh.

“But I _like_ that you’re not…” Tessa murmurs back, truthfully, against her lips.

Tessa determines that she has to help. She moves herself back, and up, perches herself on the edge of the desk. With her hands on Mariah’s waist, she pulls the other woman in close, between her own thighs.

“There. Was _that_ what you’re going for?”

“Oh… Hi." Mariah leans into her, starts kissing her neck, moving her hands down. "You’re still here? Thought you were _leaving_? But yeah, something like this, I guess.”

With Noah, with any man, even with some women, it would all be so carefully calculated. Tessa moving into position, because she is supposed to. Because it’s expected of her, because it’s the deal, because it’s part of some bigger plan. Because she would have worked out how long it will take, and knows she has just enough time to fit some strategic sex in.

She has no such plan with Mariah. She has no secret objective at all, well, at least not insofar as Mariah is concerned. Tessa wants this, she wants Mariah, just _because._

Mariah, of course, wants to know things, about Tessa’s life, about who she is, her past; later, they will fill whole evenings talking, getting to know each other, bonding over their shared love of terrible old black and white horror films… and other, less fun, things they have in common. But it’s never just comfortable, cozy, cuddly, between them. It was something else that kept them up most of the night the first night they met, that had them ditching the guys and finding a hotel room earlier that same evening, that has Tessa risking Noah arriving home to a dark and empty apartment, confused where his new bride can have gotten to. It’s what Tessa can feel in Mariah's rough kisses, in her touch, when Mariah has her up against the desk.

It _was_ crazy, what they were doing, the whole thing. It _was_ such a bad idea. Such a risk. Especially as Mariah is risking leaving marks on her neck the way she's using her teeth on her too... But none of it is enough reason to stop something so good.

After some mild fighting, they have seemingly agreed a temporary truce in recognition of the fact that in one respect, they are on the same side. They both want to win another victory against the tyranny of time, against the fact of Tessa’s marriage, against what is expected of them, against everything they’re supposed to be.

It doesn’t need to be discussed. Not now. They will need to talk — a lot — later. But right there and then, they both need to do one final thing, even if it’s the wrong thing. So long as it’s with each other.

They both, as it turns out, want Mariah to have Tessa on this desk.

(It's not a particularly special desk, they have the same one in every room of this hotel, and it's probably like, just from IKEA or somewhere and bulk bought at a discount. But it's there, and it's the right height for it, so... that will do.)

“You’re wet,” Mariah states the obvious, and slides two fingers inside her, so quickly and easily that they both gasp.

“You’re gorgeous,” Tessa says, with a light shrug, a statement which she feels is also obvious, but said aloud by way of explanation for the state she's in. 

Mariah gets faster and deeper in just a few moments, and then proceeds to... well. Tessa knows what the word is. It's " _fuck",_ not a word she usually likes or uses, not in the context of sex at least, but a girl can change her mind, and Mariah might just be changing it for her... (and here Tessa recalls that Mariah has had her using this word before now in bed, albeit in a slightly different way...). Mariah _fucks her_ , with a determined, urgent pace, all the while talking about what she is doing to Tessa in a low voice. Mariah being someone who has no qualms about using that word, none whatsoever...

But even doing this to Tessa up against the clock, and up against, on top of, a desk, she's not rough with her. Mariah never is. She's the only person who has ever gotten, straight away, how Tessa needs it, and then gets better at giving it to her, all the time.

(That's even before they've really properly talked about sex, which they should, and they will, later. And after which, somehow, it will get better again. Not that Tessa knows that, that night. She just knows that the rhythm Mariah uses on her is relentless, perfectly so; at once, somehow maddeningly intoxicating, and yet also satisfying. _She's getting enough but she wants more?_ Is that possible?)

She loves the noises Mariah makes when she is touching her. Mariah enjoys her, enjoys Tessa's pleasure, how she feels, in more ways than one. She wants Mariah to touch her, she wants Mariah _inside her_ , in a way she hasn't ever wanted anyone else.

Tessa has had plenty of sex with plenty of people, her level of want for that sex being to greater or lesser degrees in the past (usually towards the lower end of the spectrum), but this... they shouldn't be doing this, but it feels like they're _meant_ to be doing this. Tessa doesn't ever think of anyone else in these moments, but when, the next evening at the dinner party — trying to keep her story together, trying to remember not to pull her hand away when her husband takes it, trying to remember to act like she's in love with him — she reflects on last night, she once again has that feeling that it's when she is with Noah, not when she is with Mariah, that she is being untrue, unfaithful, doing something wrong.

Mariah drops to her knees, and as always, when Tessa thinks this can't get any better, it does. The pure sight of Mariah kneeling and making love to her is almost enough to push her over the edge, but even when they don't really have time, they both want this to last a little longer. Tessa knows then that what she had thought would be Mariah getting her off quickly and urgently, is really going to turn out to be one of those climaxes that announces itself for the longest time, makes her feel like she is rising and rising all the time, so that the crashing down when she does finally come will be bigger than ever. She's going to come memorably hard, she's going to nearly kill Mariah with her thighs tensing around her, most probably... but it's hardly her fault.

She throws her head and then body back, waits to be able to ride what will be the biggest wave of them all, doesn't let herself go on any smaller ones. She can do this with Mariah, she doesn't need to hurry her climax, because she knows it's coming, it's inevitable; so even when they don't have time, she's taking her time.

The final, purposeful swipes Mariah apply to her clit with her tongue finish Tessa off on the high of all highs. Somehow, Mariah always takes her to another level. She shudders, gasps and moans her pleasure as she comes, and Mariah drinks her in, tells her she’s delicious, evokes aftershocks with her tongue. 

Afterwards, leaning against each other, catching their breath, Tessa’s heart rate is nowhere near back to normal, and Mariah with one arm around her waist, is holding her up, and with the other, tracing circles on the inside of Tessa’s thigh.

“There's nothing, _no-one_ , like this,” Tessa says, when she is able to speak.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Tessa realizes she has missed part of the dinner party conversation. She compels herself to snap back to the present, skipping the part of her daydreamed memory where she left Mariah on her own and the two of them had essentially gone back to fighting with each other again... 

“It’s so difficult, when they fly the nest,” Sharon is saying, looking from her son to her daughter. “And it's so lovely, having Mariah living here with me now. We are getting to know each other much better. Day by day. But Noah... he can be a restless spirit.” 

“I like to travel. See places. It’s true. But I always come home, though, mom, don’t I?” Noah says.

Noah smiles at Sharon, and Tessa sees his genuine love and affection for his mother. His mother _is_ his home. Sharon has cared for him, she’s been around for him. She hasn’t let him down. She’s made Noah the man he is... 

“What about you, Tessa?”

“... Me?” For a moment, Tessa had forgotten she was in this scene at all, that she was expected to participate. She had felt almost as though she was watching some happy family on TV, one of those shows she had watched as a kid, where there was a moral to every story, where families may fight and disagree, but they love each other nevertheless, and it all turns out fine in the end.

But this isn’t a TV show. She is right there with this family. She is one of them, in fact. 

“You get home much? See your parents?” Sharon’s expression is expectant. 

“I... er... I haven’t been for a while, actually. Been so busy, you know.”

“What, they haven’t met Noah yet?” Sharon says. “Well, I guess that makes me feel a little better about… being kept in the dark too.”

Her words seem pointed to Tessa, but her tone is hard to read.

“Well, I’m sure they will be wanting to meet the man who has swept their daughter off her feet,” Nick says, folding his napkin and setting it to one side of his plate, his tone measured and even. “Thinking as a father of daughters myself, here...” he adds, with just slightly more edge.

“Yeah, we should definitely... go see them. Sometime soon,” Tessa says, doing her best to lift the corners of her lips, even as she feels her smile not reaching her eyes. 

What had Noah had guessed at, when he enquired about her family? A mildly overbearing, but fundamentally caring father. A sometimes meddlesome, but ultimately loving mother. That perhaps her parents wanted her to do something more serious, steady, with her life than music. Wanted her to have “something to fall back on.” That their being hesitant to fully support her dreams of a music career, this being what Noah guesses any argument with her family must have been over, was even perhaps her family's way looking out for her.

Essentially, that her parents are pretty much like his own parents. That their pressure on her is borne from, their standards for her are set out of, love.

(“The music...?” Tessa had said, thinking of her dad, seizing and smashing up the first guitar that had ever been hers, the most precious gift she had ever received, in one of his rages. Of how she had hid her second guitar so well, that he never knew she had it. 

“I guess... the music thing never really did convince them,” is what Tessa had told Noah.)

At this family dinner, feeling Mariah looking at her, Tessa slips up and just for a second, looks right back, her unsmiling eyes meeting Mariah’s equally serious own for a fraction of a moment, before Tessa makes herself look away. 

But it is enough. Mariah has seen it, Tessa knows, what Noah doesn't ever see. What her look means. That Tessa doesn’t want to, _can’t_ , play happy families around a dinner table with her mom and dad. 

Without meaning to, and even without saying anything at all, Tessa has, once again, told Mariah the truth. 

“Yeah, we are really looking forward to going to Chicago together,” Noah says, taking Tessa’s hand.

 _Are we?_ Tessa wonders. _Did I say that? Was that somehow part of the story I told him, or does he just assume, because he can’t imagine it being any other way?_

“You must have such great memories of the city,” her husband says.

Noah looks at her. Mariah looks at her. Sharon, Nick and even this Lindsay woman look at her.

Tessa looks down at the table. Looks up.

“So many memories,” she says, at last. No adjective included, of course. In that way, she’s telling the truth. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

That last night at home. The last night she saw her parents. The second-to-last time she saw Crystal.

Tessa remembers the door flying open, the whirl of movement, and suddenly _he_ wasn't on top of her anymore. 

Then the remnants of the smashed bottle, lying on the carpet. The shards of glass all around.

And the blood. Pools of it. So much.

_Too much._

Tessa thinking it, and Crystal saying it:

“Oh God. He’s dead, isn’t he? Tessa? I killed him. I _killed him_.”

_To be continued_


	13. Chapter 13

Mariah isn’t sure why she agreed to this _stupid_ dinner in the first place. Or why she has actually, in fact, bothered to show up. 

_Not after what happened last night._

She would swear, in court, on a stack of bibles, if necessary, if it came to it, that she hadn’t really planned what had happened with Tessa. 

_I mean sure,_ she had _thought_ about it. She was _only human_. There was no denying that the concept had occurred to her: of she and Tessa, together again, physically, _really_ … _at last._ And, if she were being very candid, she could concede that she had spent more than one semi-sleepless night in her bed, alone… fantasizing about Tessa being in the bed with her too…

But she hadn’t really thought it _would_ or _could_ happen.

Not until the last moment, when the two of them had kissed in the street. 

_Okay_ , _okay!!_ — 

—so when _Mariah herself_ had been the one to kiss Tessa in the street, in full view of the _Genoa City public_ — and god knows, and _Mariah knows_ , that she herself is connected, even in one-step-removed-or-another-way, _technically, officially, related_ , to too many of those people, and the risk was extreme…

— but she couldn’t stop herself, once she had started… Tessa almost seeming to _wait_ for her to do it, to make it happen, Mariah thought now: holding back, and letting Mariah lead…

With Tessa in her arms, the heady rush was _back_ , and the high Mariah had been seeking at the bottom of every cocktail glass, of every wine bottle, and at the end of every night, in every goddamn bar, was _right there_ in her hands, in her arms _…_

Mariah couldn’t do anything, once she had started, except continue the kiss, and get close to doing more, in public... _._ and then finally compel herself to stop before the two of them _did it_ … again… in the goddamn alleyway behind Underground which… _surely_ … (right?) would be taking things too far, even in the crazy spiral tailspin Mariah felt she was now in...

Mariah would, if asked, say that she thought of her existence these days as being, if not exactly _regular_ — there was too much craziness in her history for that — then at least _somewhat settled_. Working at GCBuzz, and getting to know Sharon, and Noah, and Faith, and everyone else… In a way, it really wasn’t all that exciting, even with being on TV; but then again, that was welcome. The _cult_ , the _revelation_ of the circumstances of her birth, finding out about _Cassie_ , being _kidnapped_ by Ian… hadn’t that had all been enough drama for one lifetime? Even if Mariah sometimes felt this strange absence, of lack of life happening — as though, there had to be something more, some kind of high or buzz she was missing? — but then again, this was all asking for too much chaos. She was idly wishing for the stuff of fiction, after all.

_And then, there was Tessa._

The fact of her, that she exists, how she makes Mariah feel, how close they get even though they barely know each other — it all tips Mariah off-course, sends her spinning off into other, hitherto unknown directions. Puts her very definitely off-track. Sends her places like that alleyway next to Noah’s bar, where Mariah knows she is behaving in that _insane_ way, unable to take her hands or lips off this woman; and to the hotel that isn’t the Grand Phoenix, _no, nope… that would be a bad idea_ — but somewhere smaller, more anonymous, where she _still_ might be known, because this town is so small and ridiculous — this isn’t Chicago after all —but where at least, the odds of being caught seem so much lower. Where Mariah can only hope that they aren’t seen checking into this place together, into the same room; that Tessa isn’t seen leaving in the middle of the night…

It doesn’t stop her, that risk. Of chaos, of disaster. Of hurting others. Mariah sees the risk, knows it — and she takes it. 

And as incredible as the sex had been, _again_ (and it had been), it’s the _intimacy_ they share, that Mariah finds she really can’t get out of her head. 

They’d been in that (hopefully) anonymous hotel a couple of hours, secretly away from everyone, from everything, from every responsibility that made what they were doing _impossible_ , even as they were doing it, and Mariah wanted to be the big spoon in bed, of course, but _damn it_ , if she wasn’t really a _bit_ too small...

“The smaller one can be the big spoon,” Mariah had claimed boldly, anyway, and with what she hoped was an air of authority.

“How do you figure that?” Tessa’s tone was seemingly amused, as Mariah, behind her, shifted position with a risky play, and tried to enclose Tessa’s longer frame, with Mariah’s own, shorter one. 

“Like that. See?”

Mariah, wrapping limbs around Tessa’s, and hoping for the best.

Tessa moving, pressing back against her gently, as if to test their positioning, and Mariah’s logic. 

“Hmm. OK. Well. Isn’t this just like... a small spoon, behind a big one?”

“ _No_ , Tessa.” A quick tut, a click of tongue against teeth to signify mock displeasure, even though the _very actual_ pleasure is present, and real, and undeniable, and she’s still in that heavenly afterglow where the world looks different, in the best of ways… “Not at all. _Understand what is happening here._ I _am_ the big spoon.”

Mariah holding Tessa, and pulling her in, ever closer. 

“Of course. Silly me,” Tessa had murmured.

“ _Silly you_....” 

Mariah kissing Tessa’s shoulder. Breathing her in...

Separating from Tessa last night had been even harder than the first time, in Chicago, all those months ago. It was as though they fit together perfectly (and not just as “spoons”). 

_And there it was again_ , Mariah thinks. 

_My stupid self!!_ — _talking, in grand terms, about a dumb, basic,_ not grand at all _fling!!_

_Separating?!_

From someone who’s not just _unavailable,_ not just _married_ , but married to _Noah,_ of all people.

Tessa is _Mrs Noah Newman_. That’s reality. There’s no getting past it. 

And I don’t _know her,_ Mariah reminds herself. She barely knows a _thing_ about her. That’s the problem… She knows really nothing at all. Except, what? That Tessa’s got some kind of a criminal record? That she marries men she has known a matter of weeks?

_That she looks, and feels, and tastes, and sounds, and smells like heaven…_

And tonight, Mariah has an appointment with her _._

_That’s right._ Mariah has signed up to play, on cue, on demand, following a script? — _happy families_ , sitting right across from this woman. 

It’s absurd. It’s unbearable. It’s _unconscionabl_ e. 

_So what, then, the goddamn hell_ , Mariah asks herself, clenching her teeth and doing her best to smile politely…

— _am I doing here??_

_~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~_

Tessa will herself say, if asked, that she has never been the jealous type.

After all, who, _exactly_ , in her life, has she had to be jealous _about_?

When she has been with men, it has usually been for practical reasons, or more: sheer necessity.

Because she’s _desperate for cash_.

Because she needs a place to stay, and has, quite simply, nowhere else to go.

Because Tessa has been secretly hired by a shadowy, mystery, criminal gang who mostly communicate by text, to pursue a scheme in which Tessa will contrive to meet, become entangled with, and thereafter ruthlessly scam, that most eligible of Genoa City bachelors, Noah Newman, in exchange for the cash to buy her little sister’s freedom.

_That kind of thing._

(“Progress report?”

The text had arrived while she was getting ready to spend the evening with the Newmans.

And a Copeland. 

And, although Tessa didn’t know it ahead of time, a mysterious blonde with no proffered surname….

“It’s the family dinner tonight.” Her message back, tapped quickly, while Noah was in the bathroom.

“Sounds promising. Get your name on the paperwork.”

“I’m doing what you asked, but it takes time.”

“You know the deal. You’re the one who is in a hurry, aren’t you? You’re the one who asked for more. Isn’t the Little Prince doing ANYTHING you ask at this point? You obviously need to sweeten the deal a little more...”)

When Tessa has been with women, it’s typically, but not always, been more out of her own ready choice — rather than a pressing need, or an obligation, or the prospect of near-destitution…

There have been exceptions, of course. Like that time she had stayed in the place in Hyde Park.

But still. The fact that she frequently chooses women more freely, isn’t to say that it pans out any better, in the long run, than acquiescing to whatever men want from her.

The truth is, that there is no-one, man or woman, who hasn’t really, ultimately, been either a _disappointment_ or a _total disaster_ — or, quite honestly, _both_.

Noah wasn’t, after all, the first boyfriend Tessa had run a con on, was he? And scamming guys (even if Noah’s the sweetest she has known, which, now she knows who his sister is, stacks up…) isn’t even _close_ to being the biggest source of guilt or shame from her past…

As a kid, Tessa had gotten a girl kicked out of her family home for being with her, hadn’t she…? And another one of her exes had been the sort to get high on a daily basis, had constantly cheated on her with men and women both, got her locked up, and was presently all over the press for her part in a jewelry heist. And that was just two out of… how many…

A series of epic failures, then. _That’s Tessa’s life._

And then... There’s _Mariah..._ Who is the sister of the guy she _just married!_

It couldn’t be any clearer, now could it, that she needs to let that one, let _this woman_ , go.

But… all the same…

Tessa can’t help but find herself asking, as she takes in the sight of Mariah and her guest for the evening:

_What’s going on here?_

It’s not like Tessa cares _who_ Mariah brings to dinner. Does she? Or that she even has a _right_ to care.

It’s not like she and Mariah are a _thing_.

 _I mean… sure…_ they’re _something_ … but they’re not a thing. _They can’t be a thing._ Tessa is with Noah, at least officially. _Very_ officially, she reminds herself. Government-approved, if you want to think of it like that….A matter of public record, no less.

It _really_ would be kind of ridiculous for Tessa to have any kind of a problem with Mariah being with someone else. 

Wouldn’t it?

 _But,_ Tessa thinks, and wonders, watching the blonde across the table rub a hand along Mariah’s arm in an intimate way, and being extremely tactile with Mariah, _yet again_ (how many times is that tonight?!)…

 _Who the hell_ is _this Lindsay chick?!!_

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Just when Mariah thought Tessa couldn’t get more stunning… she somehow, improbably, _does_. 

Mariah looks around the table, at what is meant to be a family celebration of Noah and Tessa’s union, and there it is, that crazy feeling — like she almost _wants_ the Bad Thing to happen: the confrontation, the conflagration. The big blow-up, where it all (and _she_ ) comes out. For _everyone to know_ about she and Tessa, and what the two of them do, together, in hotel rooms. Secretly…

For it to be revealed what a garbage sister Mariah is. What a garbage _person_ …

“Isn’t that right?” Noah says now, looking right at her.

“What?” Mariah says sharply, her nightmarish daydreams interrupted. 

“Well, I was just saying — you have to admit, that you and I are getting along a _lot_ better than we used to,” Noah repeats. “When you first got to town, I mean. I know it was difficult to begin with, for you. For all of us.”

Mariah takes a moment. Everyone around the tableis looking at her. 

“Very difficult,” she agrees at last, and looks down at the table. “Much better now, of course.”

Noah has only really _been_ her brother for a short time. Like Faith, like even Cassie too _(shouldn’t she have known, that she was there? Felt her, sensed her…?)_ , for most of Mariah’s life, she hadn’t even known that Noah existed. She only met him as an adult, and the dynamic between them isn’t perfect, she thinks, but she _does_ care about him. Mariah _does_ think he’s one of the nicest guys on Planet Earth. 

It’s just… how can she stop what is happening with his wife? 

She feels powerless. Unable to resist. And Mariah’s never encountered anything like this before. She has no frame of reference to fall back on, and not for the first time, she wonders whether she hasn’t, after all, somehow lived only half a life.

She’s never understood, indeed, at times, full-on _mocked_ , the concept of half the songs, books, movies, TV shows out there. The ones that have people straight-up _ruining their lives_ , and other people’s, too, over how they feel for someone else.

And now…

Well. She doesn’t have the resources, the experience, the self-control, the force of will, to stop what’s happening. To stop her gaze finally meeting Tessa’s, just as Nick is talking about Victor stepping off a boat from somewhere in Europe in whatever godforsaken year. All the work her _not-really_ -grandfather had put into being a self-made man, and all that novelistic garbage… 

When Tessa looks directly at her, and Mariah finds she is looking back, Mariah knows she gasps a little. Improvising, she rapidly attempts to camouflage this as a cough. A temporary lapse in dinner table etiquette, and in her composure, is how she tries to play it.

Not as the punch to the gut, the blow to the soul, that it really is to stare deep into Tessa’s eyes, even for a fraction of a second.

She sips water, rather than wine, for once, as she tries to right herself. _For God’s sake, Copeland._ She’s going to have to get a damn grip, if even looking at Tessa, and Tessa looking back, is making her feel so bizarre.

And then, the other path becomes clear, the signs for the diversion come into focus, as Mariah feels Lindsay’s hand gently, briefly, but reassuringly, squeeze her knee under the table.

It is the briefest physical contact — and, like Lindsay’s earlier kiss, it lasts but a moment, and Mariah could maybe just dismiss it as friendly support — but just as Mariah thinks of filing it away in that bracket, Lindsay, instead of drawing her hand away, moves her hand up just a fraction, and rests her fingers softly on Mariah’s thigh. Almost seems to be asking a question.

Lindsay has introduced the idea of another possibility than endless moping after Tessa. _What was it she had said?_

That Mariah needed, that Lindsay _could be,_ a distraction… _fun??_ An experience, an interaction, that isn’t as intense as anything that happens when she and Tessa are together, maybe (quite _definitely…)_ but perhaps, isn’t as gut-wrenching, either.

An alternative to Mariah pursuing any further, her apparently _hopeless_ infatuation with the woman across the table, a woman whose eyes, in certain lights, like in a mostly dark hotel room, with just one lamp on in the corner, only the street lights outside to illuminate them, seem a very dark and stormy blue, or even green; and which at still other times, like in the early evening, but still daylight, like when your brother announces he has recently married her and now you have to sit there, and act like that’s _just great_ , and _you’re so happy for him, for the two of them…_ are a still somehow beckoning hazel… 

_For crying out loud, Mariah Copeland. Stop goddamn gazing into them, whatever hell of a color you end up deciding they are!_

She _has_ to stop thinking about Tessa Newman. _Doesn’t she?_ Tessa is part of that family now, and you know what?! _Good luck to her._ That _messed-up dynasty_ that Mariah always sits on the periphery of and has to _deal with_ , but doesn’t _belong in_ — and _hey_ , she should count her blessings in that regard, right? — that’s all for Tessa now. Enjoy. At least Mariah doesn’t have to learn, take on board, all this history, or rather mythology, of Victor Newman himself, which Nick _still_ won’t shut up about…

“She’s looking this way again,” Lindsay murmurs, now lifting her hand from Mariah’s leg to pointedly touch Mariah’s arm. Deliberate physical contact above the waistline, and therefore above the table. Thus in _full view of said table._

“I think we’re getting a reaction”, Lindsay adds.

Mariah looks across to see Tessa is looking at them both with a certain curiosity. And isn’t that a little hint of something else in the set of her jaw, in the look on her face…?

Surely she can’t be… _could_ she be…? — _jealous?_

Tessa’s beautiful ­ _dark-blue-or-green-and-sometimes-hazel_ eyes now flicker with something showing in them Mariah hasn’t seen before, not even when Devon had been her officially announced date last night, as Lindsay carefully strokes Mariah’s arm for a few moments more, and then pulls away. 

Tessa’s eyes flash with something.

“ _Told you_ ,” Lindsay whispers.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Tessa wonders if Mariah is sleeping with her.

Not that Tessa really is in a position to wonder about _that._

Even if Mariah is screwing the girl every which way until Sunday, not only is it _none of Tessa’s business_ , she herself is with, _sleeping with_ Noah, right?

 _But I_ have _to do that…_ Tessa thinks. _He’s my husband... it’s not like I_ choose _it…_

_Hell._

They’re only midway through the first course — some soup which tastes just like plain tomato to Tessa, but which somehow, as per Sharon, has a complex list of ingredients that _don’t_ include tomatoes — and Tessa can see going on, right in front of her, _no attempt to hide it_ , what is about the _third time in thirty minutes_ that this Lindsay girl has, seemingly unnecessarily, put her hands on Mariah.

Tessa decides to look at her food, which — _unlike Mariah Copeland,_ is mostly _untouched_.

“So, how did you two meet?” 

Tessa nearly chokes on non-tomato soup. When she looks up, she sees that the blonde is, of course, looking at her, _and at Noah_ , expectantly.

For a sudden, crazy, otherworldly, moment, she had thought Lindsay meant — but no, of course, Lindsay wouldn’t have meant _that_ , wouldn’t have meant _she and Mariah,_ how did the two of _them_ meet. That would be, _wouldn’t it,_ absurd...??

But Tessa sees, out of the corner of her roving, searching for a safe place to land, eye, the suddenly relieved look on Mariah’s face, and realises that the redhead must have had a very similar initial thought.

Tessa wonders how much Mariah has told this girl about… things. And considers, too, whether Lindsay’s query, even if about she and Noah, was really an innocent one, after all. Her words had seemed benign enough. 

_But was there something pointed in Lindsay’s tone?_

“Yes, you know, I would like to hear this story, too,” Sharon says, dabbing at her mouth carefully with a napkin. “I’ve only had the barest of details so far.” 

“I’m all ears here as well,” Nick agrees, and he looks as though he indeed is. “Let’s hear it.” 

Both Noah’s parents’ tones are level, connote polite curiosity, but it is hard to gauge what they’re really thinking, Tessa thinks. Most parents wouldn’t be happy with their son marrying a woman he barely knows, and who they haven’t even met. Most would have questions. 

But Noah’s grin as he turns to his wife now is open, guileless. As usual.

“Well, honey —do you want to tell it, or shall I?”

Tessa smiles generously, gestures with her hand in a type of pointing, so as to say that Noah can go on right ahead. Better, _safer_ to let Noah tell how they met, how _he_ remembers it. 

After all, it’s easy to get tripped up on the details, when you’re trying to keep track of your own lies…

“Oh, well, okay. So, we both happened to be in San Francisco —“ Noah begins.

“One of my favorite cities,” Lindsay says. “Although, I kind of prefer the scene in LA.”

“The… scene? You’re… in music too?” Noah smiles politely; seems unfazed at having been interrupted. 

_The scene?_

Tessa looks at Lindsay coolly and steadily, but as if to clarify that even if Noah doesn’t understand the reference, she herself knew _exactly_ what Lindsay meant with that expression.

She probably _shouldn’_ t, of course. She _should_ look back down at her soup, or at her husband, and stay right out of this; but something about this woman’s cool self-assurance, or perhaps the way she keeps pawing Mariah right in front of Tessa’s-unable-to-object (for so many reasons…)-face, has Tessa unable to let Lindsay go unchallenged.

A smile plays across Lindsay’s lips and disappears. 

“Lindsay’s in your line of work,” Mariah tells her brother, with apparent haste. “You know, um, evening entertainment. I mean, drinking. Which is to say, er, hospitality. _Bars_.”

“Yes,” Lindsay smiles. “ _That_ kind of scene.”

“Ah, right,” Noah says, and if he senses any awkwardness, he gives nothing away. “Well, we should compare notes sometime.”

 _“Absolutely_ ,” Lindsay agrees, but her tone makes it sound to Tessa like the notes that she would be writing, and swapping, wouldn’t be cocktail recipes...

“And I’m sorry —you were totally mid-flow, Noah. Please, carry on with your story.” The blonde sips her drink and settles back, as if waiting to be told a tale.

Tessa tries to look anywhere, _anywhere at all_ , except in the direction that really should be natural, right across the table but it’s not right at all, is it, to gaze right across the table at Lindsay and Mariah, who, Tessa thinks, do, _goddamn it,_ make an attractive pair…

“Well, yeah,” Noah pauses for a moment to remember where he was. Not so very far along. 

Not that it’s a long story.

“So, we both happened to be staying at the same hotel, at the same time.” 

_You’ll be at the same hotel_ , they’d told her. 

“And one night I went down to the hotel bar, and I was just sitting there, you know, just kinda thinking it was going to be a regular night, nothing special, when this beautiful woman walked in.”

 _Noah_ _likes to go to the bar. You’ll go to the bar._

_You’ll keep going until he talks to you._

“ _In a bar_!” Lindsay says animatedly. “Even with, you know, all these apps these days, it’s still how _so_ many people meet, isn’t it? Good old bricks and mortar and liquor. Actually being _physically there._ ”

Tessa feels Mariah looking at her. 

“But that beautiful woman who walked in, she shot you down in flames, so then you asked if you could buy _me_ a drink,” Tessa contributes quickly. 

Noah laughs. “Oh hey, now. Don’t be so modest! This one — she really doesn’t know how gorgeous she is.” He takes Tessa’s hand and kisses it.

Mariah is looking again.

 _Be strong, but not too sure of yourself. A little self-effacing._ _Let him compliment you._

“Well, the truth is, Tessa was walking away from the bar with her drink, and you know, somehow, _major klutz right here_ , I bumped right into her. Spilt her drink everywhere, you know. Of course, I had to offer to buy another one.”

Sharon’s eyebrows raise slightly. “Good to know, that I raised a gentleman.”

_He’s a single guy. You’re a young, good-looking woman. Get his attention. Get him to talk to you. Get him to buy you a drink. I’m sure you can think of a way. Whatever it takes. Then, take it from there._

“And, we got talking. And we found we really had a lot in common.”

_You know how to play it. It’s always been hard to live up to your folks’ expectations. A poor little rich kid kind of vibe. It’s okay to need a little looking after, but don’t ever let him guess you’re actual trash, sweetheart. Think you can manage that?_

“A lot in common?” Nick asks.

“Yeah. Music, for one thing. Turns out, we both had tickets for the same festival.”

“You weren’t playing?” Lindsay says, and there’s a slight pause.

“I… um… mentioned… to… Lindsay… that you… were a musician...” Mariah mumbles in Tessa’s general direction; and half the wine in her glass disappears.

“You’re paying attention!” Noah says happily, apparently obliviously, as though his sister had Googled his wife instead of having, well… _other… things_ ­ _-ed_ … her… and the rest of Mariah’s drink is gone, right after she replies with a brief smile, and a gesturing with her wine glass to her brother, as if raising a toast.

_Noah is going to a festival. The ticket will be waiting for you at the hotel. So, look the festival up online. Do your homework. Be ready to say who you want to see. Make it convincing. The heir apparent has to think it’s really serendipity; not a set up._

“So we agreed to hang out there together, the next day. I guess that was our first proper date.”

_Do whatever you have to do to keep him interested. On the hook. Get serious with him, as serious as you can…_

Tessa had, accordingly... done… Well. _Did she have to spell it out, even to herself, right now?_ She had done, what she needed to. What the job demanded. To keep Noah interested. _On that hook._ Including some things, between the sheets, that this trust fund kid apparently hadn’t seen a lot of before.

She doesn’t know who Noah’s been dating before now, really; but maybe not girls from the south side of Chicago. She does what she considers the simple stuff, the kind of thing she has done so many times before, in so many different situations, and he loves it.

_He can’t get enough._

It’s easy, the _physical_. Tessa’s tactics in that regard nearly always work. And absolutely always, with men. When with them, she thinks about other places. About other _people_. About women, sure. About certain women in particular, well, _maybe_ If she _had_ to think about Noah the whole time… but the truth is, she _doesn’t_. She just has to _act right_.

(She didn’t know she was thinking about the guy’s sister when she was with the guy, did she? Well, not the first few dozen times, anyhow…)

 _Marriage_ wasn’t even the original plan. The people who hired her said just _get involved_ with him. Try and make it as serious as you can. Gather evidence, meet the family. _Be important to him._

But what could be more serious, or evidential, or important, than going right ahead and marrying the guy? Not only meeting the family, but _being part of_ it, too.

(And there had, after all, been a sale on, at that wedding chapel in Nevada… $25…?! Who could say no to an offer like that?!)

Tessa can expect the first payment from her employers soon. For marrying Noah Newman. That will be enough, so they’ve said, so they have promised, to buy Crystal’s freedom. 

But those people, who communicate in those cloak and dagger ways, have promised more, if she can get some trust documents changed in her favor… a _lot_ more _._

The number is big. Hard to believe. Enough for a life. A _real life._ For no more need for either of them, she or Crystal, to have to scratch around, to… do stuff they don’t want to do… with people they don’t want to do it with. Whether for money, or safety, or anything else.

A lot of money. All she has to do is hold her nerve. All she has to do, is not get distracted. Sure, Mariah’s great, she’s special… but that’s… she’s not why Tessa is here.

She has to focus. Think about Crystal. She has to make the right choice. They can get a fresh start. Somewhere sunny, Tessa thinks. Not Chicago, or this strange, cold little town in Wisconsin. Somewhere with a beach. They can forget about the past. About everything that happened to them both...

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“He was hurting you... I had to,” is what Crystal had said, as they both stood looking at the body on the floor. 

“You did,” Tessa told her. “You _did._ You saved me.”

“I’m gonna go to jail...” Crystal’s eyes widened. She was shaking all over, and for the first time, Tessa noticed the neck of the broken bottle, red and slick with blood, still in Crystal’s hands.

Hands that were stained scarlet, in just the same way, too. 

“No. You won’t.” 

Tessa had taken what was left of the bottle from her trembling sister with her own, similarly unsteady, hand, and carefully gripped Crystal’s fingers in her own.

If she casts her mind back, Tessa can just about remember that last summer before their mother married a man Tessa is increasingly convinced is her, and Crystal’s, stepfather. It seems to Tessa that there was a time _before him_. A better time. When it had mostly just been their mom and the two of them, in fact, Tessa and Crystal, spending their sunny days together. Their mother had been working, Tessa feels she recalls, back when she still had a regular job, and not whatever it was she did now, in order to get whatever it was she was taking, that took her away from them...

(All of which Tessa could make — if not an educated then, at least, an informed — guess, on every count). 

She and Crystal had played together, fought with each other, rescued each other from dragons and desert islands. Feuded over playing cards, and places on the sofa, and who was entitled to the last of their grandma’s homemade strawberry lemonade.

But, Tessa remembers now, what was most important, what had been impressed upon her, was that she was the eldest, and she was to take care of Crystal. And she took that duty seriously. Had interceded on her sister’s behalf more than once, and would again.

 _A good big sister looks out for the younger one._

In the living room with the sofa they had, as sisters, fought over and bonded on, and on which far worse had happened to Tessa than ever she could have imagined, she let go of Crystal. And gripped the end of her own T-shirt, and wiped the neck of that bottle on it, around and around, over and over.

As she did so, blood smeared on her shirt. Well. It wasn’t like the shirt had been pristine, anyway, Tessa thought.

She closed her fingers around the end of the bottle again carefully. Once. Twice. A third time. And set it down, on the floor, next to the still unmoving man.

Tessa didn’t know if their dad was even going to call the cops, but given the line of business he was in, she doubted it. Given he would have to explain what this guy was doing in his house with his teenage children at this hour, it really seemed unlikely. Tessa’s suspicion was that this matter would be pursued through _less official_ channels, once this guy’s buddies found out what had happened to him… 

But if anyone more official _does_ check, Tessa had thought, Crystal’s fingerprints wouldn’t be found. 

“Where’s Dad?” Tessa asked her sister.

Crystal looked at her. “He... he went out,” she said, after a moment. “I heard the door go.”

By “go”, Crystal meant “slam,” as Tessa knew.The only way that guy exited anywhere was via a slammed door, implemented either by his own hand, or by whoever wanted rid of him that time... 

Tessa herself hadn’t heard her dad leave. She’d been trying —

A sudden thought hit her full-on. One that she didn’t want to have. Of things she didn’t want to have happened.

She tried to reason with herself. Now was not the time. Crystal needed her. Crystal had helped her. Her ordeal was over. _She had to put it all away…_

Tessa closed her eyes hard against the world, took a moment. Breathed out. Opened her eyes again.

“And Mom?”

Crystal had given the slightest shake of her head, a movement immediately understood amongst the two sisters: to say that their mother wasn’t home, her whereabouts unknown.

_Same as usual, then._

“Okay,” Tessa said. “I don’t know how much time we have... so listen to me, okay?”

Crystal looked at her, gulped, and nodded.

Tessa had been pacing around the very small space of the room that wasn’t occupied by any of the couch, the table, or the body on the floor. 

She stopped pacing, to say:

“You’re gonna tell Dad that _this_ was me.” 

Crystal swallows hard, stares at her. “But —”

“You’ll say it was _me_ , Crystal,” Tessa told her, once more.

 _No doubt their “dad” will believe that_ , Tessa thinks. 

“But, Tessa...”

“Crystal, _please_ , do what I say,” Tessa says, pulling rank, and then pulling her sister into a fierce, urgent, unplanned hug. 

Which, as it turns out, but which she doesn’t know right there and then, will be the last hug she will be able to give her sister, for some years to come. 

Tessa can wrap herself right around Crystal easily, because she herself is so tall, all long limbs she feels she hasn’t quite grown into yet; and her little sister is so tiny. Crystal never will get any bigger than she is at fourteen. 

_Runt of the litter,_ their supposed dad has always called her, and not kindly, not with affection, but to put her in her place: because Crystal is so small, smaller than even some of her younger siblings, and she’s never been strong, either. Not physically, at least. 

_But that’s good_ , Tessa thinks. It’s another reason why their dad, why _everyone_ , will believe Crystal couldn’t have done it. They’ll believe it was Tessa, and that will be the story.

Tessa is the one who is _trouble_. 

And Tessa is the one who was alone in the room with this guy... 

“I heard you screaming,” Crystal whispers against her.

Tessa’s conscious of her hip, where the man now prone on the ground has cut her, branded her, so viciously, the finishing touch to her degradation that Crystal had interrupted. She’s conscious of other places, where he has...

 _Not now._ There isn’t time or space; this _isn’t_ the time or place, to feel the pain. 

“You saved me,” Tessa says again. “Now let me protect you,” she tells her sister. 

Tessa kisses her little sister’s cheek fiercely, and then, she runs. Up the rickety stairs, into the bedroom, throws opens the wardrobe. Grabs her bag. _Why are guitars so big_ , she wonders, _I couldn’t have learnt the piccolo instead?_ She drops her bag down first of all, as carefully as she can, hopes she doesn’t dent the guitar too much. Then pushes herself out, turns and hangs off the windowsill, drops out of the window, onto the sidewalk, the way she knows how. Ignores the jolt of pain all the way through her body when her feet hit the ground, the sharp pain in her ankle — and turns the corner into the main road with the bus stop on it, in sight now, just as out of the corner of her eye, Father of The Year stumbles in through what used to be the front door of her home. 

_I’ll be back for Crystal_ , she thinks. She’ll be back, soon, for her sister, and then for the others. That’s the plan.

And Tessa truly means it when she says it. It’s not a lie. Not a scam…

On the bus, which is blessedly near-empty, she avoids eye contact, keeps the bag in front of herself, covering a multitude of sins, she thinks, as she walks down the rows of seats. Finds somewhere to put herself near the back: throws the bag down, and herself after it. And when the bus pulls away, final breathes. Looks down.

At the blood on her hands.

The blood on the bottom of her T-shirt. 

She’d told Crystal to go up to the bathroom. Scrub herself. Get rid of any blood. 

Tessa hadn’t had time to wash her own hands. 

She stares down, at where that tell-tale scarlet has smeared across the back of her hands. Turns them over. Sees blood has run through the lines on her palms. Even, settled under her fingernails.

 _It’s strang_ e, she thinks, sitting at the back of that bus, and, though she scarcely registers it at the time, leaving home for good, the whole thing in some ways exactly how she had expected it; in others, worse than she ever could have guessed. 

_Because, some of…_ this _… is_ his. _And some,_ she adds, to herself — remembering the knife, remembering certain other things her father’s guest had done to her, and looking down to where more red is still, now, seeping through her shirt — _some of it, well._

_Has to be mine._

But, when she looks at her hands, even studies them carefully, Tessa realises something: she can’t tell the difference. 

She can’t tell, couldn’t say, which of the spilt essence of life that’s marked her, belongs to the man who had spent hours delighting in violating her and who is now lying motionless on her parents’ living room floor; and then again, which of the blood on her hands, is, in truth, her own. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Quite a story,” Sharon says. “It really sounds like fate.”

Mariah tries; but she can’t _quite_ read her mother’s tone.

“Very romantic,” Lindsay jumps in. “Sounds like a whole, _struck by lightning_ deal. I mean, you don’t always get _hit_ that way, you know? By destiny, I mean.”

Noah smiles happily. His encounter with Tessa is, to him, fortuitous and favorable. Nothing more; or less.

“I know,” he says. “I know.”

He’s still smiling, somewhat, when the knock at the door comes; and his grin only begins to fade a mere tad, when the unexpected visitors _properly_ introduce themselves.

Not that Mariah is looking at her brother when the smartly, if inexpensively, dressed man and woman walk in together, of course, and stand rather pointedly around her mother's house. She can feel Lindsay’s hand gently resting now in her own, if she really concentrates; but she’s not really registering that contact. No, for a few, full, stretched seconds, Mariah can only see one thing when the badges come out, when the uninvited guests announce to all gathered that they are:

“Genoa City, PD.”

All Mariah can see is the look, which is not even terror, but more, she thinks: resignation… and… sorrow? — on Tessa’s now very pale, very drawn, face — _yes,_ that’s all, Mariah would say, that she can see.

_To be continued_


	14. Chapter 14

_The morning after_ —

Mariah plays the whole evening over again in her mind. 

Or at least, as much of it as she can remember...

Great swathes of the night are in shadow. Perhaps forever, Mariah is inclined to think, if her (recent) past experiences with alcohol are anything to go by…

She’s remembering less and less, all the time, of the nights that follow a few cocktails, and a few glasses of wine, and… _what else was she drinking, last night?_

Mariah has a memory — it’s dim, both in the level of her recollection and the level of lighting of the room… But it was late in the evening… Lindsay was sitting next to her on Sharon’s couch _(too close?_ Sharon, looking _. Tessa, looking…)_ and Nick was making a performance out of opening some super-expensive bottle of Scotch, obnoxiously going on and on about how he had visited the particular region of the Scottish Highlands where it was distilled or… _God, whatever._

The persistent throbbing in Mariah’s temple is an indication of over-indulgence, and mixing “grape and grain”. So the Scotch probably indeed happened. But Mariah can’t really say she remembers everything about last night. Although there are certainly _moments_ that are seared into her brain…

Is the fragmented jigsaw of the previous night her own form of selective memory, or the simple effect of drinking ever more? Either way, Mariah is missing some source material; she will somehow need to piece things together, without having all the pieces.

Attempting to get her bearings, both geographically and in life, both in this individual chapter of her existence and more broadly, Mariah risks an ambitious move for someone so very, very hungover: to visualize the forked paths of her split destiny ( _destinies? Can you have more than one?)_ ; to try to work out why she is where she is. In more ways than one.

Could the night have gone another way? Could she have made another choice, and ended up, well, somewhere else?

 _Woken up_ somewhere else?

( _With_ someone else?)

These are really not new thoughts, as such; they’re the sorts of questions Mariah has been asking herself a lot, lately, without giving herself very satisfactory answers. It’s just that all the time, it gets more and more difficult to deny that her life isn’t getting… _How to say it…?_

A dozen idioms sort of spring to mind, but Mariah doubts she can get any of them straight at this hour and in this state. Mixed metaphors galore, if she tries.

Let’s just say, everything, _she herself most of all_ , seems to be getting a little _out of control_. 

But _maybe_ , Mariah thinks quickly, pulling up the covers, and glancing around a room that does (predictably enough) look different in the light, when she’s, well, not _exactly_ sober (that really _would_ be overselling her status) — _maybe_ , she muses, what happens to her, isn’t, in the end, always down to her own choices.

Mariah doesn’t mean _fate_. No. She’s not sure she quite believes in that. If it does exist, it has only contrived to throw cruel jokes her way, like managing to meet for the second time the woman of your dreams you didn’t even know you had been dreaming, and who you thought was lost for good, and then realizing you don’t actually need to be introduced to her amazing husband…

No, not destiny or anything like that. Mariah thinks, instead, how her own decisions might _seem_ like they are conscious turns made by her own hands (be they steady or trembling), on the wheel, but are really just a part of the interconnected and crossing network of journeys made by everyone she knows, and comes into contact with. 

( _And, furthermore… spends the evening with_ ). 

She’s just a little cog in the relentless, ever-moving machine that is life.

_Yeah, OK, it turns out it’s never too early for my mind to come up with these metaphors._

And she might be the lead in her own story, but everyone else is the central character in their own, too, aren’t they? 

For years, Mariah has wondered whether she is simply a supporting character in someone else’s drama; there to be a listening ear, to react to the life events of others, to what’s going on in someone else’s world. She’s especially felt, at times, like some kind of adjunct to Sharon, or else some bit player in the whole Newman saga. 

But things had changed. Meeting Tessa, getting close to her, had opened up new possibilities. She was the first woman, well, okay… _the first person at all_ who had really… _got to_ Mariah. _Made her so angry, so passionate…_ Their immediate connection had, somehow, made Mariah feel, for the first time in so long, front and center in her own story. As though life wasn’t something that happened to _other people_ , in other places, as she had been imagining for what felt like years.

 _Tessa is the difference._ Ifshe sees her, _if she doesn’t._ Even ifMariah tries to distract herself, to have a good time without her... somehow, she winds up sitting staring at her across a dinner table, pining after her. _Making dumb decisions because of her…_

With or without her, _it’s all still because of her_. It’s Tessa who is last thing on her mind at night, and first thing on her mind, when Mariah wakes up in the morning.

Wherever she wakes up…

 _Everything I do, every thought I have_ , Mariah realizes, _even when I’m trying not to think about her at all… And any path I choose, it really doesn’t matter._

_All routes, every time, lead back to Tessa._

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 _The night before_ —

Tessa has a few moments before she gets taken away, she figures, and so, how should she use this time?

Apologize to Noah? To his parents? Ask forgiveness? Make sure she kisses Mariah one last time before they slap on the handcuffs…?

All are bad ideas, of course, she knows… Best for Tessa to clear her mind, to not really think at all, to switch her brain to _off mode_ in preparation for that whole, being run through the full hell of the legal system, which is best done without focusing on any of what’s happening too much. Probably best not to think of how she wound up here, you know, _could life have gone another way_ and so on, all that stuff about the twists and turns of lives, for people with the words to express all that kind of thing.

 _Mariah is good with that stuff_. Tessa thinks of asking her for help with her lyrics, and then realizes after tonight, she will probably never see or speak to Mariah again.

If only things were different. What if Tessa weren’t this version of herself? What would it be like, to be someone else?

To be someone who _doesn’t_ feel fear every time she hears a police siren, whether she’s walking — or sometimes, living ( _not working, no, not that… she never did that…_ ) on the streets of whichever town it is: Chicago, Reno, Vegas, San Francisco... _Genoa City..._

To be someone who _doesn’t_ get that spiraling sense of panic, of imminent threat, every time a couple of the city’s finest walk into the store she is shopping in — even though, these days, she really _is_ shopping — no crimes involved, it’s all above board, and yet... 

Of all those things that _die hard_ , maybe most of all, it’s old habits, like they say.

Earlier today, at the GC mall, moving distractedly between boutiques that Nikki Newman probably drops a couple of hundred thousand a year in, all told, Tessa had found herself identifying, in each similarly-designed, -stocked and even (so it seems, all the assistants have the same “look” and manner…) -staffed store, within moments of walking in: where the security camera is, so she doesn’t get too close to it; and which door is the fire exit, just in case she needs to make a run for it. 

But the assistants, when they saw her, didn’t look at her as though they recognized her from some poster in the back room with a fuzzy scan from security footage of a girl either now wanted for larceny, or permanently banned from the premises, or both. Instead, they were all smiles, even effusively polite, asking how she is today, Ms...? 

And when Tessa had given them her reply, the name she still has to stop and reach for, each time, because it’s sometimes so hard to remember that she’s changed it ( _again…_ ), but today, as it is whenever she says, slightly hesitantly and almost questioningly (of herself?): “Newman”…? —

— it turns out it’s the right answer. It’s a magic word. What’s in a name? 

A whole new world, it turns out. 

Noah’s family name quite literally opens doors, grants access to VIP areas, uncorks champagne bottles. The assistants’ manner shifts, always, from polite to _positively delightful_. Private shoppers are summoned, even with Tessa trying to insist that there is really no need, she can shop for herself, but she’s met with: “oh, we take care of the whole Newman family here, Mrs Newman...!” 

On a number of occasions in the past, Tessa has been required to clarify _which_ Mr Newman she has married. A few places seem to assume that it’s Nick. One or two even guess Victor ( _yikes,_ Tessa thinks, though, at the moment, she only knows him by reputation). Victor Newman is, of course, two generations away. The idea of being married to a man that age — a man who, Tess gathers (not so much from the whispers around her from the staff in the mall, but from certain lines she’s gotten from the very much open book that is Noah), is someone who carries around with him, everywhere he goes, the dark shadows of past wicked deeds… Well. It’s not a pleasant thought. 

Tessa tries not to get too distracted or downhearted with depressing guesses as to what a man Victor’s age, and with his apparent mindset, must have done over the years, and who he probably has done it with… or _to…_ Instead, she fixes her smile, does her best to seem as though she deserves the privilege she’s married into, and confirms breezily as she can, each time: she’s Mrs _Noah_ Newman. 

_Oh, they can’t get me on that_. Noah’s only a little older than she is. Tessa does, at least, have a totally age-appropriate husband and she can hang onto that thought, that’s some cold comfort in this whole mess, after all. There are admittedly a number of, well, _questionable_ things about this marriage; and various pieces of information that might lead some to believe that Tessa is with Noah for reasons other than _true love_. An unseemly age gap, however, isn’t one of them.

Today, Tessa reminded herself, in the middle of trying on a dress that cost the same as four months’ rent on her family home back in the day, that she should be playing the part of someone not only married but _happy to be married_ to Noah Newman. He’s sweet, he’s good-looking, he tries to make Tessa happy; and she tries to do her best to pretend that he succeeds. 

But all the while, in the stores, as happened today, she is fussed over by the staff in a way she supposes she is meant to revel in, but finds she can’t quite enjoy. Perhaps some other women would like this, being the center of attention on a shopping trip, but Tessa’s childhood fantasies of sudden riches, usually based around a lotto win (it wasn’t like she had a trust fund, or that the death of any of her own family would ever make her wealthy…), did not include enacting a variation of the scene from _Pretty Woman,_ one of Tessa’s mother’s favorite movies; that is, when her mother was around, and conscious enough to express an opinion on anything at all. Tessa’s mom would always particularly enjoy the bit where Richard Gere takes Julia Roberts, to spend “ _an obscene amount of money_ …” — but that wasn’t Tessa’s thing.

No, luxury shopping scenarios, and how you can expect to be treated when you have money by people who want to take some of it from you —these things were never really what Tessa dreamed of. She had more basic, more prosaic wishes when it came to suddenly no longer being in a state of near-destitution _._

Like: she and her siblings owning their own well-heated, well-lit, home, with bookshelves that maybe even had some books on. Not that Tessa was a big reader, or really a little reader, or honestly, a reader at all, unless it was guitar tabs, but Crystal would try and read anything she could get her hands on, and, Tessa had learnt, books were one of the easier things not to have to pay for. They were rarely security tagged, and she found a big, sprawling, old-fashioned bookstore on one of the quieter streets downtown, with security that wasn’t the greatest, and lots of blind spots the cameras couldn’t reach. Crystal liked classics, with the kinds of covers and spines that looked like the stuff Tessa was meant to read for school, but of course never did, and that was what Tessa… _obtained_ for her. But there would be no need to scratch around for copies of… the one about the horse, or the orphan girl, or the other orphan girl, if this whole scheme came off. That’s why Tessa was doing this, after all… _A whole wall of bookshelves_ , Tessa thinks, that’s what they’ll have when she gets Crystal back, when the money comes through…

“Mrs Newman?” 

Daydreaming in the store today, where she’d once again been getting clothes she didn’t need, with money that wasn’t hers (all the same, it’s money Tessa can spend without question, and she’s never found the limit on one of Noah’s card’s yet). And all the time, the staff so over-attentive to her, it’s almost claustrophobic. Once kicked up onto a higher plane of being taken care of, it seems it’s so hard to bring everything back down to earth. 

And that’s as true at the mall, as it is more generally in Noah’s company. They live in an apartment bigger than the house Tessa grew up in with (Tessa isn’t sure on the math here) about two-and-a-half times the number of siblings she’s decided to tell Noah about. They eat out at places that don’t have the prices on the menu, _if you ever heard of that kind of crazy,_ she will imagine telling Crystal, later; but needless to say the numbers on the final check, if Tessa catches sight of them, make her head spin. Noah himself, at not even thirty years old, has his own personal wine collection with names and years on the bottles that Tessa Googles when he is out, as she wanders from room to room on her own, failing to write songs that aren’t about Mariah, and wondering whether to text her muse. When Tessa sees how much each bottle is worth, she gasps, then has to stop herself from choking at the dollar value of what she’s about to be drinking, when Noah decides to open one of them, and offers her a glass. 

Her husband tries to spoil her, and she’s meant to like it, but she can’t. Yes, _sure,_ she is supposed to take Noah’s money; but not _for herself… how can I enjoy myself with what Crystal is having to do?_

Sometimes she thinks her lack of true gratitude must show. Can’t Noah see it?Can her husband not realize what she really is? She’s glad, for the plan’s sake, that he’s so trusting, but then again, she’s a little sad, too, for what he can’t see; _surely she is an obvious con artist?_ But Noah never seems to doubt her. She feels a curious, gentle kind of anger at his mom and dad for raising a son so naïve, because knowing Noah, and even liking him, Tessa considers that he should be tougher, savvier, more questioning of those around him. Perhaps he would even have gone ahead and met a nice, genuine girl who truly loves him, she thinks, if Tessa hadn’t been the one who ensured that he met Tessa herself first...

 _You should have made him more selfish, more self-protective,_ Tessa thinks, looking from Sharon to Nick and back down at the table. 

Aside from his money, there are other ways that Noah tries, in his own way, to make her happy… to _please_ her. Tessa _has_ to play along, in stores, in… _other places_ , so that Noah does not get too suspicious. 

_Doesn’t she?_

She has to pretend to be someone who _hasn’t_ had one city department or another take her away in handcuffs, what is it, _five times_ already?

And, that last time, of course, it turned out the bail was ten thousand dollars.

Well, _hell_. In the days before Noah Newman, it may as well have been _ten million_. Either number was, after all, totally impossible. Tessa had no way to get that kind of money. And no-one to pay it over for her, even if she did.

Will Noah bail her out this time, she wonders? 

_Will she let him?_

Yes, perhaps Tessa could have been another person, had she been born in a different time and place, and set on another path. She could have been the kind of person for whom an arrest during the middle of dinner would either simply not ever happen, or be a mere blip, easily cleared up with a good lawyer, and then put down to a misunderstanding, laughed about later. A good, fun, story to tell over another dinner with family and friends.

Maybe, just maybe, if things were different, Tessa could be someone who _wasn’t_ recruited from behind bars to trap a good guy into a bad marriage. No, Tessa thinks, _bad_ is not even the right word. Even objectively bad marriages can at least have some actual real feelings involved on both sides... What she has done with Noah is, at least on her part, fake, from start, to what is surely going to be an imminent, finish.

How did she end up here? Perhaps the roots are deeper, but Tessa can draw a straight line from the moment the unexpected, unfamiliar visitor had talked their way into the jail claiming to be her new lawyer. From that moment on, everything Tessa had done had been a set-up, and it looks like the whole house of cards was about to come tumbling down…

_Everything I’ve done these last few months has been a lie... except when I’ve been with Mariah… not that it matters now._

Tessa isn’t looking at the police officers, but she doesn’t need to, in order to feel their looming, lurking threat. _Here we go._

She knows the drill. How it goes. They will ask her about _names_ (including her own, and which one or more of the several she has used should she cop to?), and _dates_ (the trap: “where were you, on so-and-so day of whatever month...?” Whether you say you remember or not, they can get you either way), and _people_ (she won’t ever give up Crystal, of course), and _places_ (maybe she should have just gone for the border after all? Canada isn’t so far from here, is it...? Colder than Mexico, but closer…)

Would Noah bail her out…?

Would _Mariah_? 

She thinks, suddenly of what Mariah had said, when they were together, at the hotel: 

“I could’ve bailed you out… _You didn’t kill anybody, right?_ ”

 _I didn’t_ , Tessa thinks. _Not me._ That’s one crime she’s _not_ guilty of. _But the one I will plead to, all the same, if I have to, if it comes to it…_

She can feel Mariah’s eyes on her, but then, she feels everyone’s eyes on her, the whole table. What can they be thinking?

They must all be thinking the cops have got to be there for _Tessa_ … ( _or, outside chance, this Lindsay chick who’s showed up out of nowhere, from whatever place Mariah picked her up_ , Tessa thinks. But she knows that Lindsay is looking in her direction, too).

Tessa closes her eyes, opens them again slowly, breathes out.

She can handle this. She will be okay. She’ll do what it takes.

_She’s ready._

And the next thing is the ripple of surprise around the table, the sensation of it: it’s visible, and audible. In particular, Tessa registers the vocal reactions from Sharon and Nick, and even from her own self, when the female officer steps up to the table and says: 

“Mr Newman?” 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

A slight pause, filled with confusion, after the officers speak.

“ _Plot twist_ ,” Lindsay murmurs in Mariah’s ear.

Mariah is a little surprised herself at this turn of events, truth be told; that Tessa isn’t being frogmarched out of the place into a police car. She knows Tessa has been in trouble with the law before, and she had seen the look on Tessa’s face. Not fear, so much as resignation. As though she was expecting the police to show up for her, almost ready for them. 

“Which one?” Nick says, after a moment. He is already glaring from one officer to the next and back again.

“Sir?” The female police officer, apparently unfazed by Newman glowering, inclines her head at him.

“ _Which_ Mr Newman do you want? Nicholas, Noah, or…” Nick looks at Sharon, returns his gaze to the cop. “Well. There are others…”

The officer purses her lips. 

“Noah,” she clarifies. “ _Noah_ Newman.”

 _Curiouser and curiouser,_ Mariah thinks. She would have put money on the Mr Newman being Nick. 

“I’m Noah,” Noah says.

Mariah knows her brother. Not inside out, not the way a true big sister who had been in the family before he was born — as by simple chronology she _should_ have been, but by _devious machinations_ was _not_ — would know him; but, these days, well enough. He’s not the kind of guy to lie to the police, or even to withhold information or try to talk his way out of trouble, even though he has every type of privilege going for him to be able to do those things and get away with them. He probably won’t even think to ask for a lawyer.

Nick, Mariah knows, will be savvier. 

“What’s this about?” Nick says, pushing back his chair and standing up, moving closer to the officers.

_There you go._

“If we could just have a word, sir,” the officer says, pointedly, to the son, and ignoring the father.

“Not until you say what this is about,” Nick tries.

“I’d rather discuss the matter with —”

“And we’d rather you didn’t interrupt a family dinner.” Nick’s expression is now changed from his initial steely glare, to his trademark, somewhat fake smile. The one it seems lots of women fall for, but not, evidently, the officer looking back on him with an unchanged tone and facial expression, who clearly does not find Nicholas Newman either charming, or threatening, in the slightest.

After that, _it all goes pretty much as I’d expect_ , Mariah thinks to herself. As if someone had written a script.

There is Nick, in full blustery patriarch mode, trying to impose himself, name-dropping the GC Chief of Police to try to make this problem go away. There’s Noah, guilelessly confirming he’s happy to talk to the officers, _sure!_ — he can help with their enquiries, it’s no problem at all, he has nothing to hide. There’s Sharon, looking all of drawn, pensive and concerned, drinking wine a little more quickly than usual, as Noah steps into the kitchen to talk to the cops.

There’s Tessa, looking guiltily beautiful, pale and silent, neither drinking nor eating anything at all, as the door closes on the private meeting between the police and Noah.

There’s Lindsay, holding court, telling the whole table the story of the time she was arrested in a case of apparent mistaken identity, involving inadvertently-swapped similar-looking suitcases ( _“Now I only use luggage with my face screen-printed on it. Can’t go wrong!”)_ , gold bullion that allegedly once belonged to a pirate ( _“Wait… I guess if he_ stole _it, can you really say it ever “belonged” to him…?_ ) and a missing heiress (“ _Apparently, she could have been my long-lost twin!_ ”) during her time as a croupier somewhere in Central America…

_There’s… what?_

“It could happen to _anyone_ … So I’m like, okay, you know, _entonces,_ _lo siento_ about my _español_ , _jefe, I really didn’t know this was your villa, or your suitcase, or your wife_. I couldn’t remember the Spanish for ‘ _my bad’_ , right then either, but you know, I was under the gun. Not that there were literally, you know, any guns involved, and I mean, _thankfully_ it all got sorted out after my dad called the ambassador, but honestly…”

“Your…?” Sharon is looking at Lindsay with a mixture of curiosity and disbelief.

“My dad, you know, he was like, the US ambassador to Panama, at that time, so he went and called his counterpart. The Panamanian ambassador to the States.” Lindsay is explaining the diplomatic relations that secured her release with hands raised, performing a mime of a swapping movement. “It all got fixed, but…”

“Your father was the United States ambassador to Panama?” Mariah hears herself saying.

She _might_ have slurred the double S a little in _ambassador._

“Well, you know. _Biological father._ Not the legal one, not the one on the birth certificate,” Lindsay says casually.

Before anyone can ask any more about… well, any of _that_ , the kitchen doors open, and Noah and the cops are back. Noah is shaking hands with them both, and they’re… leaving?

Mariah sees the look on Tessa’s face as they go, and sees how, when the door closes after them, Tessa seems to exhale for the first time in a while.

“What was that all about?” Sharon says, pouring herself another glass of wine.

“The bar, in London,” Noah tells his mother, shrugging, as he takes his place back at the table. “They had a really bad fire there, and the London police are saying they think it wasn’t accidental. They asked Genoa City PD to come ask me, if I had any thoughts who might have done it.”

Sharon looks puzzled. “I mean, why would you…?”

“Doesn’t sound like something worth interrupting dinner for,” is Nick’s take.

“Well… it _was_ a little weird,” Noah says thoughtfully. “They asked me… did I know anyone who might have something against _me_?” He pauses. “Or, you know, against _us._ ”

Mariah sees a look pass between Sharon and Nick. 

“Us?”

“The Newmans.” Noah shrugged again. “Could I think of anyone with a grudge, they said.”

“What a strange question,” Sharon says, after a moment. 

“What did you tell them?” Nick leans forward.

“Well, nothing. I don’t feel like I have any enemies,” his son tells him, smiling just a little.

The part where Noah adds: _and, Dad, I wouldn’t know where to start in naming the ones my family have_ , seems to be silent, Mariah notices.

“Mariah and I? Oh, well, actually, we met in a bar,” Lindsay is saying, and Mariah realizes it’s in response to a question from Nick, who has already quickly moved the conversation along, lest the talk turn to whether Nick, or Victor, or even Victoria, might have done something to prompt a British-bar-burning grudge in a person or persons unknown…

“It’s a little old-fashioned, but seems like it’s still a great place to meet.” Noah pours each of his wife, and Mariah’s guest, another glass of wine. _He’s the perfect gentleman_ , really, Mariah thinks. Lots of women would probably like to marry her brother… _Maybe Tessa really just fell for him?_

Noah sets the wine bottle back down on the table, smiles at Tessa, but Mariah sees the smile she gives him back; one that doesn’t quite reach her eyes.

 _That’s not it_ , Mariah thinks. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Sharon and Nick have questions.

_Of course they do._

Why wouldn’t they? They’re good, loving and attentive parents, and she’s, what? — the feral stray, whether Noah knows it or not, that he’s brought home, and may yet wreck that home.

But Tessa’s rehearsed her answers for Noah’s mother and father, and _she can handle this_ , right? Like stepping onto a stage, and pushing through the nerves, to give the performance you know you’re capable of.

_Selling it._

“Your parents?” Sharon asks. “What do they do?”

_Very logical. Exactly the kind of thing I would ask the daughter-in-law who appeared from Nowhere, Illinois. I was definitely expecting this one._

“My dad, he’s in sales and logistics,” Tessa tells her.

 _I mean, he has to_ sell _the drugs once he has them, and that includes managing the_ logistics _of getting them delivered, doesn’t it?_

“And my mom, she’s a homemaker.”

 _She’s terrible at making a home, but Sharon didn’t ask for a performance evaluation, did she?_

“And they’re still in Chicago?” Nick’s pouring her a drink she didn’t ask for. Mariah, Tessa sees, has already finished hers, and is holding her glass out to Nick for more.

“Yes, Chicago.”

_Probably. Ask their parole officers. My folks and I don’t exactly exchange postcards._

“You don’t miss the big city, living here?”

_Do I miss sleeping in places with rats and roaches and no proper hot water or heating and my dad’s “friends” over at the house leering at me, and that’s how it was most of the time even when I had a roof over my head, which during my time in the Windy City was not always a given?_

(Every day, she spends a few moments thinking of that early morning, in the city, in the snow. The snow on the ground, several inches thick, and having fallen in the night too, but she had not even felt even a little bit cold anymore. Instead she was warm, _very warm_. The night before, she had been thinking she had to get to a safe place, worrying how the blood wouldn’t stop and thinking she had to get help from someone, somehow, but there was nothing to worry about any more, why did people say snow was even cold... 

_Not now...)_

“Oh, no, I don’t miss it, not really.” Tessa allows Nick a smile. “I don’t really get homesick.”

_Just sick at the thought of home._

“Like Noah, then,” Sharon extends a palm in the direction of her son, who grins ruefully back. “Well, come on, it’s true! Have you ever been homesick, really? I hope you _miss us_ at least. You travel so much. London, San Francisco, New York… _Reno,_ apparently. We hardly see this guy, you know…! Although, maybe now he’s _settled down…_ ”

 _Did Mariah just… roll her eyes?_ _And how close_ exactly _is she sitting to that Lindsay girl? I mean, why not just get in her damn lap if you’re gonna_ —

“Oh, well, Mom, I wouldn’t say _settling_ …” Noah squeezes Tessa’s hand. “But we do plan to be in town for a while.”

“Well, so long as the slower pace of life around here isn’t,” Nick shrugs, “ _too_ slow for your liking.”

Lindsay’s outrageous continued flirting with Mariah, the leaning in close, the head tilts, all readily visible directly across the table loosen Tessa’s tongue, and some, but not all of her caution is cast gently into the wind.

“Oh, Genoa City certainly has its moments,” she says, with just the lightest dash of meaning added, and stealing a glance at Mariah. Catching the other woman looking back, she takes a risky moment to enjoy Mariah’s trademark blush.

A question about brothers and sisters is next from Sharon.

Tessa has, in advance, cut unnecessary characters in her story (sorry to Bobby and Holly and TJ and the rest...) and streamlined her family to three kids. The story, then, is that she has one sister and one brother. Eight kids, she figures, can, in the absence of religious fundamentalism, only connote straightforward urban white trash. It’s best to just give the character she is playing here, Mrs Tessa Neman, a sensibly middle class, agnostic-sounding number of siblings…

Questions about college; Tessa’s on shakier ground here, as she is with Noah when he asks about that topic, but she mumbles about music as her major, and Noah immediately launches into what a great singer she is, and she thinks she gets away with it.

Questions about her future plans: she simply says, she wants to spend time getting used to married life first of all. Nick seems to like this answer, but she sees a slight frown from his ex-wife.

Overall, though, all that Nick and Sharon throw at her is, like the number of kids her fantasy parents have in this fantasy world version of herself, manageable. The Newmans ask stuff she can, by and large, cope with. There’s nothing too out of left field, and nothing that suggests they have run background checks under the right name. No point at which she feels they are about to catch her out. 

So that’s all fine. But what Tessa hadn’t rehearsed her responses to, or even really allowed for, and what _really_ throws her off course, are _Mariah’s_ questions...

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“ _I am trying to… I know, I know... But I’m getting somewhere. Crystal… listen to me. I’ve got this._ You’ve _got this. Don’t say that… I miss you. Love you, too_ … Crystal?? Crystal….?”

This is what Tessa is saying, before she hangs up the call.

Perhaps, if she were giving testimony in a court of law, and required to swear to tell the truth and so on and so forth, Mariah would be committing perjury if she failed to admit that she deliberately slows her step, hangs back a little, does not make herself known, in order to hear the end of Tessa’s side of this exchange, when she sees her in front of the cottage; and before Tessa turns to see her.

“Mariah...” Tessa says, when she does.

Tessa had made some excuse — she needed to answer a call, or make a call, or whatever, Mariah can’t quite recall. Either way, it was something she needed to step outside for. She’d survived Nick and Sharon’s interview by giving answers that sounded plausible, but which to Mariah, at least, sounded like they weren’t exactly the truth; or at least not the whole truth and nothing but the truth, anyway.

Mariah had waited a couple of minutes, muttered, “Excuse me,” her destination for reasons of courtesy implied rather than announced, but she hadn’t headed directly back to the party from her visit to the bathroom. Instead, she had taken the very long way — perhaps even the frankly illogical route — around. Via the front porch.

Now, Mariah asks: “Am I interrupting something?” — knowing full well that she has just overheard the end of one half of a private conversation.

“Um.” It is Tessa who breaks the eye contact they maintain for a few silent seconds. “I just had to talk to a friend of mine who… er… needs some advice, about —”

Mariah cuts her off with: “How does it work, exactly?”

“…What?” Tessa lifts her gaze back up again to meet Mariah’s own.

Maybe it’s the impossibility of being with, really _being with_ , this other woman, the one who Mariah finds she can’t stop thinking about. Maybe it’s that Mariah has had enough of feeling like she isn’t in the driving seat of her own life, as though she is always subject to the whims and desires of others, and she has to try and steer things back on course.

Maybe it’s the way Mariah knows she isn’t ever getting the full story from Tessa, and it’s the journalist in her.

Or maybe it’s just the liquor in her, pure and simple. That nightly ( _sometimes, daily…)_ potion that turns a simple, straightforward Jekyll into a complicated, chaotic Hyde...

“Is it like: you just open your mouth, and the lies fall out?”

Mariah, opening her own mouth, has allowed unplanned words to spill out between herself and Tessa…

“I… I’m not lying…” Tessa says, after an apparently taken-aback moment.

But even as Mariah feels she might once again be heading down a track it will be hard to get off of, she determines that everything about Tessa’s body language, the tone of her voice, suggests deceit. Then there is, of course, the things the woman actually says.

“I heard you saying: _I love you_.”

Tessa looks less guilty than Mariah was expecting. Like she’s about to try and explain!

As though she even can!!

_The audacity of this girl…!_

“Okay… Right. _Yes._ But it’s not what you think —”

Mariah doesn’t mean to raise her voice further than she already has; she is, after all, on her own, not to mention her mother’s, not to mention Tessa’s mother-in-law’s, doorstep, but the increase in volume happens anyway.

“ _Keep_ your explanation, Tessa. _I don’t want to hear it._ Save it for your husband. Or your girlfriend, or _whoever_ that was.”

“ _Girlfriend_? No, Mariah, _really,_ you have this all wrong —”

“How many?” Mariah snaps.

Tessa looks at her. “How… many?”

_Is there an echo out here or something!?!_

“ _How many people_ , exactly, are you cheating on my brother with?”

Perceptibly, before her, Tessa’s stance shifts. Mariah sees it: a physical change, in how her sometime lover carries herself.

“You mean… _besides you?_ ”

It’s like a bolt from the blue; Tessa no longer backing off Mariah, but standing her ground, standing up to her, and a little more than that, in fact. 

Mariah reels, momentarily, and Tessa drives the point home.

“The number of people… in _addition to you?_ That’s the number you want?”

Blue eyes, _I don’t know how I could have been confused as to their hue, but they’re definitely blue,_ Mariah realizes, remembering as Tessa’s eyes blaze at her, a salient fact that she’s sure she’s read somewhere before now: that it is the blue heart of a flame, that is its most dangerous, its very hottest, part.

“Only, you seem _pretty mad_ about me being _unfaithful_ to Noah, when the truth is....” Tessa seems about to say something else, but changes her mind, almost smiles grimly before she shakes her head.

“There’s only you, Mariah. _Only you_.”

And, looking deep into those blue eyes, Mariah finds she believes her. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 _R_ _ight there,_ Mariah will think, the next morning, remembering how Tessa looked in the moonlight...

Right there, was where the turning point was, when she took one path and not another, _if she could even see the other route was there…_

After that? That’s where the night truly fragments into pieces, even into some scenes it feels like Mariah is watching, not really playing a part of; certainly not directing in any way.

In the cold light of day, she must try to reassemble the night… As best she can... 

_To be continued._


	15. Chapter 15

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to @FridayinCanada for tolerating all my ideas as scraps of things before I write them and the encouragement.

There are things that Mariah can’t get out of her head. Maybe they’re influencing some of how she’s been behaving; some of the things she’s been doing, of late. _Yes._ Maybe these thoughts that she has been having, are influencing her recent actions.

_Very possible._

Thoughts, such as:

All those months ago now, back in Chicago, the snow on the ground. Winter, cold and unforgiving. And Tessa, in bed, warm and pliant. Giving way to Mariah in a way Mariah can’t define, or explain why she more than just _likes_ , but as of that evening, realizes she _needs…_

And also… Tessa, in the low light of the hotel room, her face flushed from what they’ve already been doing for hours (although to Mariah it feels like it's been forever, in only the very best kind of way...) A thin line of sweat on Tessa's brow, and one on her upper lip, too. Moving closer again, placing a finger against Mariah’s mouth.

Oh, so, right, so, _I’m talking too much_. Well, what’s new. _I’m probably ruining this whole thi_ _—_

Tessa doesn’t let Mariah finish her thought. Leans in, replaces her finger with her lips against Mariah’s own lips, and kisses her, then pulls away. Swings a leg over, somehow moves above Mariah's body. Slides a knee either side of Mariah, her legs now open around Mariah’s hips. Leans back on her heels.

 _The look in Tessa's eyes,_ that’s what Mariah finds particularly hard to forget. At once so soft, and so…

… _something else._

“What,” Tessa asks, arching an eyebrow, looking down at her. “What is it? Don’t know what to do, when you’re not on top?”

“I… am new at this,” Mariah gulps.

“Yeah, you said…”

“ _Very new_. Just got to the whole, thing. Basically still in the orientation…”

“Oh, I wouldn’t say that,” Tessa smiles, moving her hips so she leans forward into Mariah in a _particular_ way that makes them both breathe out hard for a moment.

“Hey, wait…” Tessa feigns puzzlement. “Are you saying I’m _hard work_?”

“Not hard work, no... I mean, not that you’re _easy…_ ” Mariah scrambles. “You know, what you are, is you’re _really tall_.”

Tessa rolls her eyes. “ _Obviously._ What _are_ you blathering on about…? Don’t make me _shush_ you again.”

“I say stupid things.”

“Only when you’re talking.”

“Mhm,” Mariah agrees. “It’s a good point.”

“Let me help you, with my height,” Tessa says. “If you want…”

“I… _want_ …”

Tessa, moving over and around. Sliding onto her hands and knees.

_Um, yeah. That particular visual is hard to forget too._

“Is that… better?” Tessa murmurs.

“I…”

Mariah is fairly sure she just makes broadly appreciative noises after this.

" _Now_ you're quiet? I got to talk you through this, or you got it?”

“I… think I get the idea,” Mariah says, sliding her body behind Tessa’s, pressing herself flush against the other woman, and leaning so that she can, she hopes, make the physics of the whole work. One hand is holding Tessa in place, the other reaching around, and, well, under, Mariah supposes, caressing Tessa’s breasts for a reaction that sounds like, and what Mariah hopes is, a moan of approval.

Then:

“Slowly,” Tessa says, when Mariah moves her hand down, between Tessa’s really, very, _exceptionally long_ legs, starts to stroke her. “ _Slower…_ yes. Better. Okay. Hey. Not so rough. _Gentle._ Don’t… No. _Not inside_ … I don’t want… that. Just… _there_. Stay there. Well, not stay. You know what I mean. Like that. _Yes_.”

 _That_ one-sided dialogue, when really all Mariah is contributing at her end is noises of assent and agreement (and no doubt that’s for the best), and what she was doing while this conversation proceeded, Tessa pushing back against Mariah's hand, setting the pace, and the terms, in control, Mariah doing her bidding... not sliding into Tessa because Tessa says not to, going more slowly because Tessa says she must... It is the kind of thing that stays in Mariah’s head. Has her tossing and turning, when she’s on her own at night, weeks and months later. The sort of thought that she thinks over and over in the shower, and in other private places that have a locking door. That she thinks of, quite frankly, when she’s _trying to get herself off,_ but which also, she can’t help thinking of, in rather a different context of course, in the middle of passing the salt over the dinner table. The sort of thought that rushes in, to the front of her mind, when she is trying to answer another one of Nick’s rather pointed queries about how her love life is going.

Tessa, telling her what she _does_ and _doesn’t want_ from her...

And Mariah, following instructions more diligently than she ever has in regards to anything in her life.

Making Tessa come, to Tessa’s own specifications...

Late on one of those nights on her own, and Mariah’s own climax won’t, well, _come_ , and she realizes something: she herself has never been so specific about her desires with anyone… has she?

Is it, well… a _gay thing?_

Scrabbling around on the side table, opening her phone to the blindingly bright home screen, but unlike the phone itself, searches of the internet offer no illumination; just bad lesbian porn and erotica. For thoroughness, as part of her extensive due diligence exercise, Mariah takes a look through that stuff anyway, all the same, just to be sure she _isn’t_ missing anything other than the very real, physical presence of Tessa Porter…

But none of that stuff that distracts her for a while can properly displace the Tessa thoughts that run through Mariah’s mind, as though they were some ticker continually scrolling across the bottom of the screen, 24/7, of _The Copeland Show…_

And when she meets Tessa again, and each time these last few days that she has seen her, it is the shock of the fact of Tessa that hits her every time: that she is real. Not a fantasy. And of the _specificity_ of her. How she says “Mariah” the way no-one else does. Her long fingers, long legs. That troubling scar she has, the one that Mariah finds herself worrying about at strange times.

How Tessa’s voice sounds when she is asking for what she wants.

_Exactly what she wants._

The precision of her wants and desires… the adjustments she asks for... and sometimes letting Mariah use her instincts, and sometimes overriding those instincts for her and showing her it's going to be different. And every time, every way, every moment of touch between them so much better than Mariah can ever remember, or think of, or even _imagine_ with anyone else.

_I shouldn’t be thinking of Noah’s wife in that way._

_I shouldn’t be wondering if Noah knows his wife the way I do._

_What kind of a sister_ am _I_ , Mariah wonders?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 _What kind of sister_ am _I,_ Tessa wonders? 

After all, she doesn’t even have a phone number for Crystal; instead, she gets calls, with no warning, at all hours of the day and night, from someone who shows up on her phone screen as _Caller ID Blocked._ Or _Unknown Number._

She makes her excuses to Noah, if he is around, not working late at Underground, ( _doing his best to act like someone who actually needs a wage_ , she sometimes, in her less kind moments, thinks …); or, if he is already asleep, Tessa carefully slips out of bed. _Does not disturb._ Leaves her husband to what look like peaceful, untroubled dreams, and steps out onto the balcony of his... _their_... apartment, a vantage point from which she can see most of Genoa City.

A city by name, sure, but this strange little town is nothing like Chicago, or those other sprawling metropolises she’s seen, that somehow make Tessa feel safer, if anything, with their looming buildings, their dark alleys you can run down if you need to, the bars on every corner you can be anonymous in, if you want…

There are few places to hide, here. It seems everyone in GC has already heard that one of its most eligible bachelors has, unusually for this place it seems, married someone from out-of-town, although it also appears that the speed of Noah and Tessa’s union, whilst more rapid than most, isn’t exactly so out of keeping around here. Weddings happen a lot in these parts. Noah’s own parents have been married more than once to each other, as well as having gotten hitched to others along the way, and their romantic history includes some arrangements that to Tessa sounded, honestly, a little, well, _you know_ , not _incest_ , but all kind of a little _close-knit on the family side…_

Then again, Tessa is hardly in a position to judge. Not when it turns out she has managed to get mixed up, even if inadvertently, to one degree or another, with a brother and a sister.

From the balcony, over to the west Tessa can see one of the city’s taller buildings, the Grand Phoenix. That is definitely not the hotel Mariah took her to — that would be too _known_ , too _visible_ , a very difficult place to conduct an affair in this town, although people probably still try, Tessa figures. If, during those sleepless nights, she looks over to the east, Tessa can see the cottage, on the ranch, where Mariah lives with Sharon, and where they all are tonight, and from the gathering at which, Tessa must politely step out, when her phone buzzes amidst the after-dinner conversation. 

She had wondered, at first, if she should leave the call unanswered tonight; but not being there for Crystal in the past has already had the most severe of consequences, and Tessa determines that she must pick up. The excuses, then, are delivered this evening to the broader Newman (and Copeland) family ( _and Mariah’s guest…_ ); she must leave Noah and his loved ones ( _and this Lindsay… person?? Whatever she is doing here, like Tessa can’t guess what she’s after…_ ) to what look their happy, secure lives, and slide back into her _own_ life. The one she hasn’t so much left behind, as casts into shadow, every day that she tries to smile through with Noah by her side. 

The two sisters can usually only talk for a little while, at those times when she and Crystal are able to conspire to steal the chance to speak. There’s rarely a chance to say a proper goodbye; often, the line simply disconnects at Crystal’s end, and Tessa is left hanging. Beginning the wait, the worry, until the next call, whenever that is. _All the things that could happen between now and then…_

Tonight, Crystal sounds more tired than ever. _Exhausted._

A good night’s sleep was always rare back at their so-called home, for them both, what with the “parties” and the full-on physical fights, with all that noise and chaos, all night long, and Tessa always wondering who had been allowed into the house _this time_ , who did she need to watch out for, guard against. Barricading the bedroom door with the wardrobe, time after time, because you never knew, with her dad’s… “friends,” whether one of them would be barging in, claiming they thought it was the bathroom, and then telling her she’s beautiful, asking her didn’t she want to go out sometime? — if _you need me to pay for it, I can pay…_

Mom and Dad, often sleeping late into the next day after the night before, sometimes until it was dark again, not caring about breakfast or school or whatever else Tessa had to make sure happened for the kids, and yet, no doubt, life during those mornings was so much better, for so long as both those deadbeats were dead to the world.

For her own part, still yawning through every day, and sleeping late every chance she gets, Tessa feels she’s all these _years of tired_ , but she at least gets to lay her head in somewhat safe places these days. 

But her little sister doesn’t get any kind of a break. And she is starting to sound worn out, strung out, _done with it all_. The fatigue in Crystal’s voice, not just at her day, but at her night before that — at her whole life and really at _everything_ — is real and palpable, even as Tessa can hardly bear to hear it.

 _I’m going to fix this,_ Tessa promises Crystal. Promises herself. Even as her words sometimes sound hollow. 

To Crystal. 

_To herself._

_Where was I, all that time?_ Tessa asks herself, and she thinks of how she had left Crystal behind; how she hadn’t gone back, when she should have. When she had _said_ she would. She had left it all too late.

_I guess my word never has been worth very much._

Tessa had been somewhere, and nowhere, but _not where she should have been,_ not helping Crystal get out. Even as Crystal’s childhood was narrowing, threatening to end entirely, in a very similar, if not quite exactly the same way, as Tessa’s own had. 

Tessa doesn’t want to think about where she was, instead of being there for Crystal. Or who she was with. Or who _she herself_ was. 

She doesn’t want to think about what her little sister has been doing. Has _had_ to be doing. Has had done _to_ her. Tonight. Last night. The night before… 

_It’ll be over_ soon, she tells herself. Tells her sister. 

But against Tessa’s will, her own mind does things it should not. The barricade she’s tried to set in her brain against that particular door: it will not hold. She thinks of who Crystal is with. Who she _has_ to be with. The things that are demanded of her. Over, and over.

“It’s okay,” Crystal says now, tonight, maybe hearing the tone in Tessa’s own voice, and it’s a shock, it’s a kick in the gut, the direction in which the reassurance flows, in what that means: that what’s happening to her little sister is becoming more normal to even Crystal herself now. That Crystal is beginning to accept all of this. That she maybe doesn’t even see that there _is_ a way out.

Tessa tells Crystal she loves her. 

Only the sound of those beeps, to say the call is over and Crystal is gone. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Only you,” is what Tessa says, when Mariah challenges her about what she had heard on that call.

 _Am I being played?_ Mariah asks herself.

She’s considered before whether, despite her own less than honest history, she’s nevertheless, somehow still inherently gullible. Someone who herself, can be scammed. Not that she lets people in very easily, but look at her track record. She was a cult member, wasn’t she? An enthusiastic one, at one time. There was a time she would have done anything for Ian…

Well. Perhaps not _anything…_ There were things she would have said _no_ to.

She doesn’t always like to play through the thought process of whether or not Ian would have listened..

Look, the whole, cult, thing: _that wasn’t your fault_ — that’s what Sharon says (she doesn’t phrase it as, “whole, cult, thing”, exactly — but the not being Mariah’s fault? — yes, that’s her apparent take).

But, Mariah, thinks, how objective, how fair, is reassurance as to her past, her character, _from her own mother?_ Maybe Sharon is simply trying to reassure herself, so much as her daughter; trying to convince herself that she, Sharon, isn’t to blame either, for all those years Mariah had spent out there in the Path.

That it wasn’t Sharon’s _own_ fault, for not being able to remember she had had, and was separated from _two_ daughters…

 _Well, you know that story,_ Mariah thinks. _That one really isn’t on your mom_ , Mariah tries to remind herself. There was an explanation. It’s an insane one, sure, but it is the truth, Mariah is certain. Sharon _really_ didn’t know. Sharon had been drugged... Just like Mariah had been, with… no, she reminds herself, _by,_ Ian. They were both victims of the machinations of others. Other people’s choices, dictating the paths their own lives took.

 _You didn’t know anything else,_ Sharon tells her, these days, when Mariah sometimes says aloud that she should have _got out earlier_ , should have _known better_. And: _that’s all over now._

Maybe. A bad dream Mariah was finally able to wake from, perhaps. Not something she’s a part of anymore.

But is it something that is still a part of _her_?

Mariah tries to visualize in her mind’s eye that very deep, clear blue water, that there _must_ now be between herself and her past. She’s out of Ian’s grip, now; far beyond his influence.

But even as Mariah tells herself she’s no longer in any danger from any of Ian’s tricks and subterfuge, at the same time, she wonders: whether she isn’t still vulnerable, after all, to the schemes of others. 

“Only me?” Mariah paces around, an animal in a cage that doesn’t exactly know if she wants out, or what she would do if she were set free. “So then… why are you out here… telling some girl _you love her_ …?”

They’re out on Mariah’s once-long-lost-and-now-found _(or was Mariah herself the one who was lost?)_ mother’s porch.

And Mariah knows her voice is too loud. For the location. For the conversation. For the whole situation.

She knows she herself _wants_ too much. _Is_ too much. _My pushy sister,_ Noah says, describing her to others. And on that Mariah considers, Noah probably has the right idea.

It’s seven-strong-drinks-deep of hazy, but Mariah’s pretty sure that she manages to accuse Tessa of being a gold-digger in the exchange that follows… there’s something about being mercenary... In it for the money...

“It’s not like that…! I mean, I _do_ love Crystal, Mariah —” 

She'd thought for a moment that "Noah" would be the name after "love." But that isn't what Tessa says. Just this damn Crystal girl again. And it seems Tessa has seen her look, as she rushes to interrupt her; as though Mariah, thinks, she herself is someone who is about to erupt with fury unless Tessa calms her down.

And it’s true, Mariah has to admit; she does feel fairly… _volcanic_ , right now.

“Crystal is my _sister_ ,” Tessa tells her, quickly.

The seismic tremors Mariah has been experiencing begin to ease. 

“Oh... Your sister. The…” She tries to remember what Tessa had said about her family at dinner. What was it her sister was into again? 

“ _… field hockey player…?_ ”

“That’s…” Tessa looks her in the eyes, and then away. “That’s what I _wish_ she could be. Where I wish she was. At college. Playing sports. Studying art or literature maybe. That’s the life I want for her.”

“And… she’s _not_ in college?”

“No,” Tessa says quietly. “She’s in trouble. Big trouble. And, Mariah — it’s down to me. I have to get her out of it.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It is Crystal that Tessa is thinking of, when she loses consciousness lying in a snowy park in Chicago, that night she runs away from home.

Tessa’s remembering her little sister, drawing something, the same thing, over and over: a picture she had liked. In fact, as Tessa recalls, Crystal was copying, very well, very accurately, and with some skill, the cover of one of her favorite books. A black horse, maybe…?

Crystal had been so innocent then. Tessa doubted she had ever even kissed a boy, let alone done anything more. She was still a child, of course, only fourteen years old, but most of the kids on their block were much more streetwise than she was. But Crystal was different; she wasn’t street smart. She was _real_ smart. Good grades, if her folks ever noticed, which they did not; Tessa’s parents weren’t of, of course, the type anyone needed to bother to forge a report card for. But Crystal was a little vulnerable too; not just her build — that was part of it, sure, but so, too, was the way Tessa’s little sister thought about things, saw the world. _Naïve_ , Tessa thinks, later, when she realizes the right word. That was Crystal.

Face-down in three inches of snow, Tessa also thinks of her father’s “guest.” Of his demands, of how things had spiraled, how she had begun to try to tell him _no…_ it was too much...

Of his face, close up against her own. “You want me to get your little sister down here, then? Because I will. _Don’t think I won’t._ Your dad owes me, and I _guarantee_ he doesn’t care which one of you pays me back.”

 _Not Crystal,_ Tessa thinks. She couldn't handle this... Not _this._ And Tessa would fight this guy, physically, or any way she can; but she believes him. That it will be Crystal, if it’s not Tessa herself.

And so, just as Tessa always has taken all the beatings she could for the others, she had taken what this man was determined to give out too. As much as she could.

But she could only take _so much_ , and in the end, Crystal must have heard how Tessa was being hurt.

Her little sister had rushed in…

 _Brave, for someone I think of as still a little kid,_ Tessa is telling herself, as she drifting into oblivion. As she does, memories flicker, playing across her mind’s eye, and amongst them, there is Crystal’s face in careful concentration: reading, drawing…

And then, nothing. An emptiness. A blank space. She’d known nothing more of anything... until she’d woken up in a strange place.

A room she doesn’t recognize. Smaller than her own, but then it only needs to fit the one bed in it. She has this place to herself. The bed is more comfortable than her own at home, in fact; the room, a little warmer.

“You’re awake,” a voice says, when Tessa lifts her head from the pillow, blinks, tries to get her bearings, fails.

Tessa turns in the direction of the voice. Her eyes aren’t quite focusing. It’s not someone she knows.

“I…” Tessa’s voice is cracked, her throat dry. She runs her tongue over her lip, feels where it has been split open. She’s conscious of the bruise on her cheekbone, too. Lifts her fingers up to it. Doesn’t quite make contact.

“Someone did a real number on you, huh?” The voice is soft, maybe even concerned, Tessa thinks, although she doesn’t know why someone she’s never met would care what happened to her face. Or the rest of her…

“Here.” The girl, sitting next to her on a rickety-looking chair, hands Tessa a glass of water, waits for Tessa to struggle to sit up, reaches out a hand and helps her drink the water down. Tessa feels the cold liquid go all the way down into her empty stomach. And as she experiences this, she’s conscious, too, of the pain all the way through her body.

“You had me worried. Nearly took you to the emergency room, and I try and stay out of _official_ places like that, you know, name and details and all that kind of thing…” The girl, blonde, good-looking, Tessa supposes, if you like that kind of thing… and a few years older than Tessa, she thinks, now raises her eyebrows in a way that suggests giving her _name and details and all that kind of thing_ would be a particularly ominous fate.

“So, you _know_ … it had to be bad, right? And then your fever broke, _finally_.”

“Fever?” Tessa says.

“Temperature was way up there. I was worried. And you were… saying all kinds of stuff. But your secrets are safe with me,” the girl says. “I don’t judge.”

 _Saying stuff?_ Tessa wonders. _Like what…?_

As if she has heard her, the girl says: “It all just sounded… Well, not good. But… listen, you’re safe now, okay?”

Tessa tries to move again, but she can feel pain all over now. She suddenly throws a hand down to her hip, where that piece of shit had used the knife… it’s bandaged up there now.

The girl watches her reach down to that injury, seems about to say something. Apparently decides against.

“Where am I?”

“This is my place,” the girl replies. “Not much to look at, I know, but I’m a pretty good guard dog when I want to be. I’m Tanner, by the way.”

Tessa looks at her.

“Yeah, _right,_ I know what you’re thinking… _What can I say?_ — my parents were expecting a boy. Well, not in this lifetime, maybe the next... Believe me, just the first of the _many, many_ ways in which I disappointed them. And I’m going to stop talking, because you need your rest.”

“I’m OK, I need to…” Tessa says, but she’s already falling back asleep.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Let’s take an interlude to ask, what does Mariah remember less well on that particular night out on Sharon’s porch, about that first night with Tessa in Chicago? What sort of thing should she recall, if she wants to try and understand Tessa better?

Perhaps:

A natural lull in the evening’s activity; they are wrapped up in each other, and Mariah feels exhilarated. Not a usual feeling in bed. Not typical to feel this heady, giddy rush, she now thinks, _after_ making love — or really, at all. A continuing high... 

After _having sex_ , Mariah corrects herself. Making love is, after all, what people who are in love do... 

But there’s something else. When people talk of being... well... the word is, and Mariah feels ridiculous for having it in her head, but it’s _satisfied_ , and Mariah had always understood that to mean... well, had she _reached that certain particular peak_ during proceedings. And she has, at times, with some of the people, well, all having been _men_ , who she’s slept with in the past, got to that point, of course. Not every time, naturally, not even most of the time; but to a level that she had understood, from the general discourse on such things, was statistically about average. Therefore, she felt she had never had occasion to complain.

When Tessa touches her, though, it’s as though there is no doubt she is going to come. It’s not a _maybe_ , it’s not if she’s _lucky_ , it’s as though it _will_ happen. Perhaps she’s the perfect amount of inebriated for sex to be _this_ good, Mariah suggests to herself that night, but she really doubts that’s it. Because there are other thoughts… other, emerging ideas of being _satisfied_ , fulfilled, and it has something to do with how she pleasures Tessa; not how Tessa pleasures her.

Here, then, could be placed the segment Mariah _is_ able to recall: Tessa’s insistence on exactly what Mariah should be doing to her…

But then, there was also, as they lay together:

“Have you... have you been with a lot of women?” Mariah is asking, without really thinking — or it was something she was _only_ thinking, not intending to say out loud — and she hates herself immediately. Sounds like a dumb question from someone who’s only slept with one woman. And has only just now done so. And that one woman is the one she’s asking the dumb question. 

Which reflects the factual position _entirely._

_But still._

“Not that many,” Tessa tells her, after a moment, smiling a little. 

Mariah immediately thinks upon hearing this that there must have been _a lot_ of women _._ Mariah has read those articles about the studies where women under-report how many sexual partners they have had — whereas men, of course, take their true number and triple it for luck. 

Tessa is running her hand along Mariah’s shoulder, tracing a pattern; no, a _letter_. Mariah can feel what it is, now: it’s an _M,_ made fromcareful, repeated strokes. Tessa’s finger, warm against Mariah’s skin, moving up and down, over and over. 

“How did you know —“ Mariah stops. She isn’t quite sure what the etiquette is on this, and she knows that she just asked something dumb, and now she feels this question might be even dumber. 

I mean, _do you_ have a sexuality conversation, like this, with someone you’ve just met? Let alone, _how_ do you... 

But it doesn’t _feel_ like they just met tonight, she thinks. Tessa feels familiar; maybe like a friend. Someone to hang out with, swap life stories. Maybe talk about boys, discuss relationship troubles. 

But then again — more than a friend. Someone who, when the boys are safely out of the room, busy elsewhere, Mariah talks in increasingly intimate terms to; leans in to press her lips against this other woman’s, and finds, not entirely to her surprise, if she is honest, that the other woman kisses her back…

Well, maybe in some parallel universe.

“How did I know what?” Tessa says, but the tone of her voice suggests she knows what Mariah will say next, what she’s getting at. 

Maybe you _don’t_ have this conversation, Mariah thinks. Not with someone you just slept with. Maybe this is some terrible failure of gay manners on her part. But she wonders who else, exactly, she can ask.

She’s seen, online, that there’s some kind of women’s bar venue place thing back in GC — but even if she went, she wouldn’t know anyone. Wouldn’t even know how to have this conversation. Where to even begin. 

Mariah doesn’t really know how to do it _now_ , but then, she’s doing all kinds of things for the first time tonight... 

“That you... liked women…?” she unnecessarily clarifies. 

Tessa feigns disappointment. “You’re still on the fence, really?” She shakes her head. “I’m going to be in trouble with the Grand High Lesbian if I can’t nail you down as a recruit...” 

Mariah knows she winces at the word “lesbian.” And she knows Tessa sees that.

“I, uh… guess I need to work on my comic timing,” Tessa says. 

“No... it was... yeah, it’s funny,” Mariah kisses Tessa, quickly, almost as punctuation, she thinks. “The _recruitment_ thing.”

“If I — I’m sorry,” Tessa says, and Mariah sees her face has all at once clouded over with an expression Mariah has never seen before on anyone. Can’t place, or name. “If I pushed you —“

“Pushed me?”

“Into this.”

Mariah looks at her. Is this some kind of self-defence thing? In case Mariah is of the view it wasn't actually that good?

“Well, hardly. If I recall correctly, I was the one inviting you back here. I wanted this. I wanted _you_.”

It’s true, Mariah realizes, when she says it. 

Tessa seems to relax a little. “Well. So long as you’re sure.”

“I’m sure.”

She’s certain of that much. The _sexuality_ stuff is to be worked out another day, Mariah thinks, but the _sex_ , well, she wanted that. Why wouldn’t she? 

Mariah thinks about her need, the way she had begged Tessa to fuck her —

 _Now that’s a word you can safely use_ , Mariah tells herself. _Fucking._ She doesn’t usually use it; but it’s the best word for what they have been doing all night. 

What she begged Tessa to do to her, in a way that seemed to surprise Tessa when she asked — no, _pleaded, insisted_ ; surprised even Mariah herself, how she’d wanted it, wanted her, wanted Tessa to do that to her, needed to be taken, by a woman, by _this_ woman…

And she had certainly been highly amenable to everything Tessa had wanted from her and how she had wanted it, too.

It didn't feel like compromise, like Mariah was giving anything of her own self up, in either regard. It felt like she was somehow more for having given something of herself to Tessa. And Tessa, she feels, is somehow a part of her now.

_After one night. You ridiculous, absurd, ludicrous, fool..._

“I wanted you,” Mariah says. “No doubt about that, Tess,” she adds, watching, as she speaks, what she thinks are clouds clearing from Tessa’s expression; doubts that Mariah won’t understand the true provenance of, not until so much later. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

On the porch, out on which they’ve already been too long, Mariah is still looking for an explanation.

“Crystal… she got mixed up in something really bad.”

Tessa sees Mariah’s expression as she tries to interpret what Tessa means. What is she guessing? _Drugs… ? The wrong guy?_

“And I wasn’t there for her, before,” Tessa continues. “I have to help her now.”

“What’s Crystal… mixed up in?”

Maybe it’s the alcohol making Mariah’s tongue loose. Maybe it’s that she’s a naturally nosy person. Maybe it’s that she just wants to know everything she can about Tessa Porter, Tessa thinks.

This is a turning point in the evening, and in life perhaps, too, if Tessa only knew it. But what Tessa doesn't realise, not at that time, is that maybe, _maybe_ , it truly is that if Tessa, or someone Tessa loves, has a problem, then that’s something Mariah wants to help fix, too.

 _Whether Mariah in fact knows_ how _to help, or how to get to the point where she even could do so, is another question…_

“Mariah… don’t ask me to tell you…”

“I just did, I think…?” Mariah is looking at her, Tessa knows, but she herself is deliberately looking at a fixed point in the street beyond the cottage.

“We have to go back inside now,” Tessa, mutters, trying to turn to leave.

“Not until you tell me what’s going on. There’s something you’re not telling me...”

What is Tessa not going to do? She is not getting Mariah mixed up in this business with these people!!

_Who have damaged me. Who have taken my sister…_

She will not do that.

“There are things I can’t tell you, Mariah.”

Staring at the fire hydrant out there on the road. Or whatever the thing is.

“Why not?”

“Please. Don’t push this.”

Mariah is walking around Tessa in a strange pattern that seems to keep leading back to her. “Mysterious phone calls. Things you _can’t tell Noah_ … Things you can’t tell _me_.” Mariah shakes her head. “Was any of it true?”

“Any of what…?”

“All that stuff you were saying tonight. About _who you are_ , and _what you want._ I mean, did I just sit there and listen to you _lie to my whole family_ about your entire life?”

“Look, I know how it sounds, okay?”

Mariah has already accused her, a few minutes ago, of being after Noah’s money. Of using him. And now:

“What is going on with us, Tessa?”

“What?”

Tessa isn’t sure what’s worse. What Mariah says next, or her tone, which doesn’t even sound angry anymore. Which has Tessa wishing and wanting Mariah back in furious mode again, anything, _anything_ but the sad, almost choked voice she uses now.

“I mean, we spent half the night in bed together last night… And then, you went home to Noah. And you come to dinner here with Noah. You live with him, you love _him,_ I guess. He’s your husband. And so, what am I, what are you doing with me…?”

 _Go back to accusing me of gold-digging!! Anything but this,_ Tessa thinks, as Mariah spells it out:

“If you and Noah are the real deal, then what are we? A bit of fun on the side. The sex... I guess that’s what you like, right? What you want from me? So you’re using me.”

“I wouldn’t… No… _Using_ you…?”

“For sex…” Mariah shrugs, as though there is no other answer.

“That’s… not how it is. You need a couple of glasses of water, sober up a little, then you’ll see...”

“You know, to paraphrase Winston Churchill,” Mariah says now, and the slur on “Churchill” gives the great statesman letter several instances of the letter “S” in a surname that has none: “You’re pointing out that I am drunk. Well, guilty as charged. But guess what? In the morning, I will be sober. And you’ll still be married to Noah. And lying to the both of us.”

And she’s gone, back into the cottage, before Tessa can take an inspiration from any historical leader of note in order to respond.

_To be continued_


	16. Chapter 16

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's only taken me two weeks to update, not two months... a Christmas miracle...! 
> 
> This chapter has high Lindsay content... read at your own risk ;)

_I’m not that drunk_ , Mariah tells herself. _I’m in control. I know what I’m saying. I know what I’m doing._

_I know what I’m hearing._

“ _I’m with Noah_. _That’s the way things have to be…”_ Tessa had said.

_What is her game?_

“You okay?”, Lindsay murmurs, when Mariah sits back down in her chair. Mariah realizes, then, that she has neglected to return via the convoluted, attempted subterfuge-style, long way she took out of the cottage; she has just walked right back in through the door that Tessa is now stepping through.

Noah and Nick, at least, apparently engaged in some kind of debate about something to do with Underground by the sounds of it, don’t seem to have noticed.

Sharon, though, raises her eyebrows in her daughter’s direction. Mariah shakes her head, as if to say nothing is wrong; but her mother’s expression is unconvinced. 

“I’m fine,” Mariah tells Lindsay. 

“You know, “ Lindsay says, “we could just—”

But her _sotto voce_ suggestion, whatever it was to be, is interrupted. 

“Mariah,” Sharon says. “Would you help me with something in the kitchen?”

“What do you need help with, mom? Dinner is over, isn’t it?” Mariah replies, almost snaps. She hears the edge in her own voice. The alcohol is blurring some of her boundaries, but at the same time, honing the ends of particular dividing lines to almost painfully sharp points. 

Sharon smiles faintly. A woman well-versed in the acerbic barbs delivered by the likes of Nikki Newman and Phyllis Summers, Mariah reminds herself, is not a person very easily fazed or dissuaded.

“Excuse us,” Sharon says, with a mildly regal air, to Lindsay, and to the newly-reseated Tessa, and ushering Mariah up out of her chair again, sweeps her out of the room. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~

“You two make a beautiful couple.” 

“I’m sorry?” Tessa turns from watching the kitchen door close behind Mariah and her mother, to see Lindsay looking at her over the top of a cocktail glass.

“You and Noah,” Lindsay says. “ _Who else?”_

Noah nods over at the two of them at the mention of his name, gives a brief smile at the compliment he has heard, before returning to his conversation with Nick.

Tessa takes a moment to regard Mariah’s guest for the evening. Tessa has registered the import of that “ _Who else?_ ”; even if the two Newman men present apparently did not.

 _How much has Mariah confided in this woman?_ _Maybe more than she should have? Not that Mariah owes me any explanations…_

_Not that I deserve any…_

“ _I’m not using you_ ,” Tessa had told Mariah.

One of the few things she has said tonight that is true….

But:

“ _I don’t believe you,”_ was Mariah’s response, almost instantaneously, barely letting Tessa finish speaking, before talking right over her.

 _But how to explain?_ That sex wasn’t something Tessa would ever _use_ someone for; that if anything, sex had most often in her life been something done out of necessity, or expectation, or _worse_. It was usually a means for Tessa to try and get something that she needed, sometimes, _desperately_ needed. Hardly ever had it been a life-affirming pleasure in and of itself; or even, truth be told, any good.

Tessa can count the times she’s actually fully enjoyed herself in bed on one hand, and two of those had been the nights spent with Mariah. And when she’s with Mariah, it’s of course not that she is _using_ her — instead, sometimes, Tessa thinks, it’s almost like what they have… well. What if it’s… _don't think it..._

The real deal…?

 _No._ That line of thought is dangerous. Tessa won’t let herself think it. That kind of stuff doesn't exist, not really, and anyway, she has to see this thing with Noah through. And so she can’t explain herself to Mariah, not properly. After all, what kind of romantic sentiment is: _Mariah, sweetheart, it’s not that I am using you…_

_It’s that I am using your brother._

“Noah, he seems a lovely guy.” Lindsay sips her drink.

“Yeah,” Tessa agrees. “He is.”

“Makes sense,” Lindsay shrugs. “I mean, his sister is pretty lovely, too.”

 _Are she and Mariah sleeping together?_

Tessa reminds herself she has no right to that information.

_Are they, though??_

“Oh yes. She’s great. I… uh… get that impression,” Tessa says. “About Mariah.”

The briefest of smiles plays across Lindsay’s face. “Well, how could you _not_. You have eyes, right?”

_I have all five senses, in good working order, and believe me, I have applied all of them, more than once, to an appreciation of Mariah Copeland… Have you, Lindsay whatever-your-goddamn-last-name is, which I don’t think you have disclosed?_

Tessa wonders to what extent the look that she is giving Lindsay at this precise moment conveys the thoughts that are running through her head.

 _Wait. Lindsay is drinking out of a cocktail glass?_ Who’s been making cocktails? _Did Lindsay go into Sharon’s drinks cabinet and make that herself?_

“Moscow Mule,” Lindsay says, following Tessa’s eye line, to her own hand.

 _Huh. Maybe this girl_ can _hear my internal monologue. Hope no-one else can. That would be weird…_

“Moscow…?”

“Mule. Yeah, I know what you’re thinking, it’s not in the copper mug, right. But it’s my favorite,” Lindsay says, with a shrug. “So I had to kinda compromise on the presentation. But don’t worry. Mariah’s mom said I could make myself at home,” Lindsay says. “Or maybe, in this case, like I’m at work, I guess? And I made Sharon a drink too, I’m not a complete terror of a guest.”

_Huh. She knows what I was thinking indeed. This girl is probably a witch. I ought to be careful…_

“Yeah, you and Mariah missed my bartending skills display. That was all while you were outside... taking your call… and Mariah was… wherever she was.”

Lindsay assumes an expression that is an approximation of being concerned.

“By the way, that call sounded serious. Everything’s okay, I hope?”

 _I know your type,_ Tessa thinks. _Compliments, and sympathy, and Sex on The Beach, and the women just fall into bed with you. Right?_

“Oh yes, you know...” Tessa answers. “Just, my sister. She’s uh…”

A moment’s hesitation. If she says that Crystal just called for a chat, that doesn’t quite justify saying she needed to step out from the gathering to take the call.

And, as usual, telling the truth is entirely out of the question.

“She’s going through some stuff,” is what Tessa goes with.

Lindsay nods. “Ah, right. Hitting you up for money? Needs a place to crash?”

“Well… no…”

“Ahh you see, that’s me _projecting_. They are the only reasons I ever used to call _my_ sister.”

“Families… can be difficult,” Tessa says, in as neutral a tone as she can manage.

“It can get complicated, can’t it,” Lindsay agrees, with the faintest of glances at Noah and back again. “The way all the relationships _intersect_.”

_Mariah has definitely told her something._

“Real shame that you two missed my _party trick_ ,” Lindsay says, looking downcast for a moment.

“Party trick?”

“Yeah. So, I can guess what _anyone’s_ favorite cocktail is. Just from very brief interaction.”

“Is that so?”

“All part of my job. I'm a professional.”

Lindsay leans forward and makes so as to be appraising her, “I _really back myself_ at guessing what people might like. I _pride_ myself on it. Hmm… Now, Noah, Nick… I said, for both of them, a Manhattan or just your regular Old-Fashioned, you know, something kind of _straightforwardly masculine_. And whaddya know, I was right! Sharon, a Martini. Stirred, not shaken. Now Mariah, well, I would really like to try her with a Screwdriver...”

Tessa narrows her eyes.

“… which leaves _you_ , let’s see... hmm... You’re a complicated one, aren’t you?”

Tessa feels her own look in response might have upgraded from frown to glare. She does her best to moderate her face. It is a battle.

“Now, I’m sure you know the _South Side,”_ Lindsay says very deliberately, and Tessa is about to respond, when Lindsay adds: “by which, I mean the gin-based cocktail of course. Delicious.”

Tessa wonders what has given her away. She’s been working on everything, she’s practiced, she’s run over the cover story so many times. _My accent? Something I said?_ _Some reference to the decidedly wrong part of Chicago that I ran away from?_

“I —”

Mariah’s guest snaps her fingers suddenly as if a revelation has occurred. “Don’t tell me. I got it.”

Lindsay lowers her voice to a level only Tessa can hear.

“You… would in fact, be, let me guess.… _A Red-headed Slut_ kindagal. Am I right?”

The look of mock innocence on Lindsay’s face at dropping this name is enough to make Tessa want to take this girl outside and show her that _yeah_ , Tessa for sure knows the _South Side, bitch,_ what of it? Want to see a bit of it right here and now in Wisconsin?? _You can take the girl out of the South Side but for sure you can’t take the South Side out of the —_

She tries to settle herself. Nick and Noah, after all, remain just feet away, apparently oblivious to the tension on the other side of the room.

“Did you just —”, is what Tessa eventually says, in a low tone herself, before Lindsay turns up her volume back up to normal, with:

“You know what, Tessa, I really don’t think we have the right ingredients for you here right now for _that_. Pity, huh?”

Lindsay moves forward again, closer than ever, and the edge in her low voice is a knife ready to slice and dice any fruit you’d care to add to your glass for flavor. 

“ _So sorry_ , beautiful. Looks like it’s just _not your night_.” 

~~~~~~~~~~~~

“I know what’s going on between you and Tessa,” Sharon says, as soon as the door closes behind them.

Mariah does her best to keep her jaw from dropping to the impeccably-stylishly-tiled kitchen floor.

“What?” is her best attempt at a comprehensive response at this time.

“Well, you’re making it pretty obvious, don’t you think?” Sharon throws her hands up in the air and shakes her head.

“We are? Uh… _I am_?”

“I have _eyes,_ Mariah. And I’m your mother! And I am _Noah’s_ mother. It’s hardly something that would escape me when you’re sitting at my table eating dinner!”

_Fuck. So this is it. This is where she calls me every name under the sun, tells me to get out of her house and she never wants to see me again. And not for the first time…_

“Look, Sharon, I…”

 _What are my next words going to be?_ Mariah is asking herself, and not really getting the most satisfactory of answers. “ _Can explain_?”

She _can’t_ explain, of course; nothing at all is explicable when it comes to Tessa. Since Mariah met her, she feels she has been behaving in this _insane_ way… in the first instance, sleeping with a woman she had just met, and, again, there was no part of that sentence that made any sense, did it? — unless of course you factored in how beautiful and well, actually, _adorable_ Tessa was…

“You can’t stand the girl!” Sharon exclaims, and Mariah stares.

“That’s not, I mean...” Mariah swallows hard. Realizes it will be best to just go with this. “Um. How did you know…?”

“Well, I think you two having that little _screaming match_ out on the porch might have given it away a little, Mariah.”

“I wouldn’t call it… a screaming match, “ Mariah says. _Maybe it_ had _gotten a little heated… more on her side than Tessa’s…_

"Well, I don't think Nick or Noah heard, but I was closest to the door and I certainly picked up on the tone of your voice. Look, I understand the reasons for it, I do,” Sharon tells her daughter.

“You… do?”

 _Okay so_ now, _here it comes. Here we go. Here’s hoping she lets me actually pack my bags, and doesn’t throw the entirety of my worldly possessions out onto the streets of Genoa City…_

“You’re worried for your brother, of course.”

“Umm…” Mariah takes a moment to think how to respond, the alcohol now making her slow to manage the conversation with Sharon, where it had made her quick to seize control of the, well, apparently it was a _screaming match_ that she just had a few minutes before with Tessa… “Er. Yeah. Well. I mean. It’s you know. A whole situation…”

“A situation, well it sure is, and if you don’t think I see that too…? Noah has _married_ this girl, _woman_ in… Las Vegas or god knows where… Even by his… rushing right in standards, it is extreme.”

“Reno.”

“What?”

“They got married in Reno, I think.” Mariah was paying quite close, horrified attention during that entire conversation.

“ _Wherever_ it was,” Sharon sweeps a dismissive hand in the air, as if she doesn’t care in which city in the desert Noah got rapidly hitched; _that is hardly the point,_ her wave says. “And, we don’t know _anything_ about her. I suspect _your brother_ doesn’t know anything about her.”

“I… uhmm… I believe I agree with you there,” Mariah says.

 _Do_ I myself _know anything about her?_

Asking that question makes a cinematic highlights reel of sexual pleasure and snippets of intimate conversation roll through Mariah’s head, and now is _really_ not the time. She quickly shuts down that mental projector…

“So I _do_ understand why you’re concerned. And I think it’s really sweet of you, I do. But _please,_ Mariah… don’t get into fights with Tessa. This is not your battle.”

“I guess not,” Mariah agrees.

“Nick and I… Well. We will make some enquiries, put it that way.”

“Enquiries? About… Tessa?”

“I’m saying too much,” Sharon replies. “Don’t worry yourself about it. Just, concentrate on what’s going on with you, okay.”

“Okay…” Mariah is remembering she does know one or two things about Tessa Porter. Like the fact she was recently in jail. So if Sharon and Nick are planning to run background checks, these might come up with some fairly… _interesting_ results…

“Speaking of what’s going on with you…” Sharon’s tone shifts. “Lindsay? I don’t remember you mentioning her before. She seems uh… interesting.”

 _Yeah,_ interesting _normally isn’t good._

“New friend,” Mariah says. “Just, really new, you know. Kind of a, drinking buddy.”

_Do women have those?_

“It’s that… with tonight being a family night, and a chance to get to know Tessa, and so on, I thought that you might bring… well. _Devon_ , or…”

“Yeah… You know, I don’t want to rush things. With _Devon_ ,” Mariah says, finding her stride a little now. “You know, like…” she waves her arms, and the gestures are too big. Drunk kind of big. She reduces their size. “Big family dinner. Might be a little intense. Too much of a big deal… too early. I didn’t want… to… frighten him away.”

“I see,” Sharon says. “Well, you are _wise_ to be taking it slowly. At least one of my children is…”

 _Yeah. Real slow,_ Mariah thinks.

_I wonder which one of us slept with Tessa more quickly after meeting her — me, or my brother?_

“And in the meantime. Don’t give another thought to Tessa. Okay?”

_Surely it was me._

“Right you are,” Mariah says, pulling a rarely used “ _mom_ ” at the end of her sentence out of the bag, as the conversation ends, to try to sell that she means what she says.

Not that night, but a day or so later, Mariah realizes that she has just spent an entire conversation doing to Sharon, what she herself had got so angry with Tessa for: blatant lies and evasion. The same things she herself has done to Sharon before, years ago now, but certainly in recent living memory. Things that make her ashamed, that she is meant to have moved on from, selfish behavior she should have left in the past.

But right then, all Mariah can think is she needs another drink.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Tessa has to admit that Lindsay’s cocktails are really rather good.

She will give the woman that.

If nothing else.

 _Mariah must have told her._ The pointedness of Lindsay’s comments was unavoidable. _She knows_ , Tessa thinks.

Lindsay is telling Nick some story about one time when she was making cocktails in some place called Tobago.

 _Where’s that?_ Tessa wonders. Canada?

Or is she thinking of Winnebago?

Lindsay is now talking about a beach. So maybe not Canada. Tessa’s never been there, and now she wonders whether they have beaches. Well they have an ocean, right? At least one, maybe more. So the land must end somewhere, and the sea start somewhere… And there’s a bit in between…

“You know that Tom Cruise film, the one about the guy who makes the cocktails. I forget what it’s called.”

Even Tessa knows that one. _Surely the woman is joking._

“Anyway it really set the whole industry back years in my opinion,” Lindsay is saying.

_Seriously, what the hell is she talking about?_

“Really?” Nick seems amused again, glancing at Mariah and back to her guest.

“Not a fan of _Cocktail?_ You more of a… _Coyote Ugly_ kind of girl?”

It’s out of Tessa’s mouth before she has a chance to edit the thought.

Lindsay laughs. Tessa glances over at Mariah, who seems to be pretending she doesn’t know what _Coyote Ugly_ is, and instead feigning interest in the ingredients on the side of a bottle of gin. Mariah looks up, sees Tessa looking at her for the briefest of moments, and then sets the bottle down and engages Lindsay in conversation instead.

“ _Really?_ Right, so, she wants to be a songwriter? But then she starts working in a bar? Sounds like I need to check this out, surprised I’ve never seen it…”

_It is indeed relevant to your interests, Mariah…_

Yes, all being said, it’s been a fairly excruciating evening in places.

But the problem with it ending, as it must do soon, is a simple enough one: Tessa will have to go home with Noah.

 _He’s so sweet, it’s not hard to pretend to be in love with him,_ Tessa thinks, watching her handsome, charming husband be the life and soul of the party. He seems happy. He probably thinks things are going well...

Tessa will need to shift gears tonight, when Noah is her only audience, when the two of them are alone and she has to give a particular kind of performance. That would all be easier to carry on with, she could just switch off and compartmentalize as she so often does, in a way that has become more than second nature, except that now, Tessa has had the reminder of the direct comparison of experiences embodied in Mariah.

Last night showed one side of Mariah (fiery, passionate), and tonight has evidenced another (also fiery, passionate, but with added fury), and Tessa just can’t stop thinking about either.

But she will have to put Mariah out of her mind to convince Noah that _he_ is the one she wants. In bed, and out of it. This is the impression that she must leave him with, every time. Nothing should give Noah any cause to doubt she cares for him, in every way a wife should…

She looks over at him and smiles now, and he smiles warmly back.

_Just need to keep this up until Crystal is safe._

It won’t be long, like she told Crystal herself. _Just a little longer, we’ll be done._

Thinking about, well, _exactly_ what she will need to do tonight to keep Noah happy makes her wonder what Mariah will be doing tonight.

It’s obvious what Lindsay would _like_ Mariah to be doing.

_But what about Mariah? I mean, is she really into this person? All these obvious ploys and “friendly” arm touches and…_

Yes, Tessa thinks, studying Mariah’s expression, the way she is standing, the smile, how she tosses her hair back, how she responds to Lindsay.

It really does look as though she might be.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

_I can be into Lindsay if I want,_ Mariah thinks.

Maybe it’s the confidence that comes with alcohol. Perhaps it’s the self-assurance a woman can gain from arguing with her sister-in-law about the sexual and emotional connection the two of them share, on her mother’s porch.

But either way, Mariah feels sure now that Lindsay is into her.

_At least, for tonight._

_Am I into Lindsay…?_

“I’m just going to step outside for a cigarette. Mariah, keep me company?” Lindsay says.

 _Yeah, why not take another meeting with another hot girl on the porch,_ Mariah thinks.

Outside, the moon is high, and it’s cold, colder than earlier, than when Mariah was out here with Tessa.

“You smoke?” Mariah asks Lindsay. It seems a dumb question given the reason they’re supposed to be out here, but maybe in a way, it isn’t…

“Not cigarettes, not usually,” Lindsay replies, fishing around in the inside pocket of her jacket and producing something that Mariah recognizes as likely to be other than tobacco. “Want some?”

“Oh… Well. I don’t know…”

Lindsay waves her hand. “No worries. More for me.”

_Tessa’s still in my head. Something needs to get her out of it…_

“Maybe I’ll just… try it.”

The pot goes right to Mariah’s head.

“She _is_ very beautiful, Red…” Lindsay observes quietly.

Mariah realizes she was talking about Tessa. Again. _Wasn’t she?_

“I was talking about Tessa. Again. _Wasn’t I_?” Mariah says.

“A little bit,” Lindsay confirms.

To be fair, Mariah reasons, that probably would have happened anyway, even without the aid of any substances. She wakes up in the morning thinking of Tessa. She goes to bed at night thinking of Tessa…

“What can I say.” She shrugs. “My brother is a lucky guy…”

“Oh, please. _Tessa_ is the lucky one.”

Mariah renders her face into a look of horror and disgust.

“Oh god, not you as well. What is it with women and my bro—“”

Lindsay physically backs off in denial. “Oh absolutely not…! Not _him._ Pffff. _No way_. I mean, I’m sure he’s a nice guy. But men aren’t my thing, Mariah. In case you didn’t get that memo… I didn’t mean Noah. I meant — _Tessa_ is lucky, _to get to be with you_."

Mariah feels the temperature of her mood lowering again. “Oh. Well. _Apparently_ , Tessa doesn’t agree with you on that. I mean, she _isn’t_ with me, is she.”

“Not right now,” Lindsay agrees. “Her bad. She’s crazy, if you ask me.”

Lindsay looks directly into her eyes as she speaks. Mariah has to admit she’s really quite beautiful.

_Men aren’t her thing… like… at all? I guess… sure, people can be gay…_

“Oh they _sure_ can,” Lindsay agrees emphatically.

“Oh… I did the saying stuff out loud thing again…

Lindsay smiles. “It’s cute. _So are you_.”

Mariah stops herself from saying that Tessa doesn’t think so, even though it nearly takes clamping a hand over her own mouth to prevent it. She leans forward and quickly and briefly kisses Lindsay’s cheek instead.

“Thanks,” she tells her. “And thanks for keeping me company tonight.”

“You’re welcome. What are friends for?”

“We’re friends?”

“Aren’t we?” Lindsay smiles.

“Yeah, I mean, sure. That’s what told Sharon you were. A new friend.”

“Well, I’m glad I could be of some assistance this evening.” Lindsay takes a small step back so she can complete a slight bow to her. “But you know,” she adds, “just throwing this out there…. there’s _another way_ I could help. If you want.”

“Oh?” Mariah says quietly.

“Remember that _fun_ concept we spoke about? But you know… No pressure. If you’re not into…”

“I…” Mariah thinks of how good it feels to be close to Tessa. _How she’s never felt like that with anyone._

“Well, I won’t push it,” Lindsay says. “I could be in danger of striking out here...”

_How Tessa is a liar. How Tessa is with Noah._

Before she can do any more thinking, about anything, Mariah responds. Quietly, she says:

“You’re not striking out.”

“I’m not?”

Mariah shakes her head slowly. Takes a step closer. “No.”

_How Tessa will go home with Noah tonight._

Lindsay takes her hand, runs fingers over Mariah’s fingers.

Mariah knows she is trembling a little, but it could just be the cold. 

“You know what, Mariah, I’ll tell you the truth.”

“Please do.” _That would be refreshing_.

“ _I know you want to spend some time with me_.” Lindsay says, in an exaggerated mock whisper. “I was just being modest, just now.”

“Sure of yourself, aren’t you?”

Lindsay pulls Mariah in close. “Just confident, that I can take your mind off of things.”

 _How Tessa will sleep with Noah tonight._

“So. Take my mind off of things,” Mariah instructs.

Lindsay’s kiss isn’t like the one in the bar earlier, which could be subject to a number of interpretations… There is no doubt about her intention here. This kiss can only be taken one way. It’s soft, and deep, but very deliberate, very sensual. Mariah think she tastes a little like ginger beer.

But Lindsay stops after a few moments, waits, silently asks for approval to continue; and when Mariah gives that to her, by pulling her back into the kiss, Mariah feels freer, a little _wilder_ , honestly. She _is_ caring a little less right now.

Lindsay is the one to pull away the second time too, but only to ask:

“You want to get out of here?”

~~~~~~~~~~~~

_“You need to meet the grandparents,”_ is the text that arrives on Tessa’s phone while Lindsay and Mariah are on Sharon’s porch, which, apparently, is some kind of local lesbian meeting place now.

“ _I’ll speak to Noah,”_ she replies quickly, deleting the thread again, but before she can put her phone back, there’s another reply.

“ _Taking too long. Step it up.”_

Tessa wonders how exactly she is meant to engineer a meeting with Victor and Nikki Newman. Naturally, she most likely _will_ meet them, given she’s Noah’s wife, but she can hardly ask Noah to set something up in advance of things taking their ordinary course, can she?

“Everything okay?” Sharon looks mildly concerned.

Tessa hurriedly closes her phone and puts it away.

“Just my sister,” she lies, instinctively. “She’s, you know, got a lot going on.”

“Oh… Guy trouble?” Sharon asks.

_You don’t know the half of it._

“Yeah,” Tessa says. “That kinda thing.”

“Well, not everyone can be as lucky as you,” Sharon tells her. “I’m biased, of course, being the mom.”

“Oh yeah, right,” Tessa agrees.

Noah’s mom.

_Mariah’s mom…_

"I'm lucky," she agrees with Sharon.

“Well, I don’t know where Mariah and her friend got to but I think it’s probably about time we called it a night,“ Noah says. “Thank you so much, mom, for dinner. It was incredible.”

“Yeah, really amazing!” Tessa's mouth is moving, but her mind is only wondering where indeed Mariah and her friend got to.

“Oh, well, you’re very welcome. And Tessa, it was great to get to know you better.”

Nick agrees with Sharon, and there is various hugging and saying goodbye, and _are you kidding me, Mariah and Lindsay are still not back here?_

When Noah and Tessa step outside onto the porch, the tell-tale sign of marijuana lingers in the air and even Noah wrinkles his nose, but there’s no sign of Mariah or Lindsay.

Noah’s phone buzzes and he reaches into his pocket for it.

“Oh, it’s Mariah,” he says. “She says those two went to go and get one last drink at some bar in the city before it closes. I mean, you’d think the cocktails would be enough, wouldn’t you? Well, I guess Mariah’s texted mom too. Shall we?”

_A drink at a bar, huh._

“Sure,” Tessa smiles at Noah. He hasn’t really been drinking that much, even with the wine for dinner and the cocktail made for him. He only sipped these, and didn't finish them. He will be under the limit to drive them home.

She notices these things.

“I think that whole evening went really well,” Noah says, when they get into the car. 

_A drink at a bar? An invite back for “coffee”, probably._

“I think my mom and dad really like you.”

_Can’t get distracted. Got a job to do._

“You look beautiful tonight,” Noah says. “I mean you always do, but... wow. I kept thinking..."

_You’re not with Mariah. You can’t be with Mariah._

“.... Great to see everyone. But can’t wait for some alone time with you.”

_Just a little longer. Just until Crystal’s safe._

~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Got the place to ourselves. My housemate is away,” Lindsay says, closing the front door after them and sliding bolts across. It's not a sketchy part of town, exactly, that she lives in; but it's not _quite_ the grounds of the Newman Ranch.

“ _Really_ a housemate, by the way. Not my girlfriend. Or an ex.”

“I... didn’t think otherwise...?” Mariah tells her, truthfully. 

She is met with a knowing smile.

“Oh yeah, that’s right... you’re new to this... Well. You’ll learn. Lesbian drama, it’s a _whole thing_. Won’t be for us, of course.” 

Lindsay gestures from herself to Mariah quickly, before then her hand pauses gently in mid-air between them. She reaches for Mariah, lets her fingers fall, then rest, gently against Mariah’s neck. 

There’s a moment, where Mariah asks herself: _am I really going to do this?_

She thinks about getting a cab. Going home. Quietly, getting ready for bed. Turning out the light. Sleeping alone in her bed in her mother’s house, like nearly always. Not before her nightly ritual of scrolling through her messages with Tessa, of course, and typing and deleting a dozen versions of a reply that she won’t send, again, before angrily throwing her phone across the room, and then, a few seconds later, sheepishly getting out of bed to retrieve it, hoping she hasn’t cracked the screen again. 

That end to the evening is still an option...

But standing in the hallway of Lindsay’s apartment, Mariah knows it’s one she won’t take. 

She will stay; and she will let, she will _make_ , things happen — not because Lindsay is beautiful and fun and straightforward, even though, it’s true, she’s all of those things, and more besides. No. She’ll do this because, Lindsay _isn’t Tessa._

It’s wanting Tessa so much, that means she needs _very much not Tessa,_ right now.

“You know,” Mariah says, “I can’t promise—“

Lindsay silences her with a kiss.

“I know, Mariah...” Lindsay says. I get it. “This...” A characteristic shrug. “Would just be _this_. Tonight is just _tonight_. But I think... it’d be good,” she says. Quietly. Simply. 

“Could potentially be that... fun... thing, you mentioned,” Mariah says, stepping forward, closing the small amount of distance between them slightly. “Which does sound intriguing.”

“ _That’s the one_ ,” Lindsay confirms, waiting, paused, as though passing on her turn in the game; and so it is Mariah who moves again, eliminates remaining space, and removes any doubt as to what will happen between them tonight.

 _Make me forget about her, just for tonight — take me out of all that, please, can you?,_ she feels her own kiss ask, and _God,_ maybe she can blame the alcohol or the pot but perhaps she even says the words out loud...

And there, in Lindsay’s mouth, and now her hands, and then in the way Lindsay leads her to her bedroom, how they pull clothes off of one another, Mariah begins to get the answer she needs. 

_To be continued._


	17. Chapter 17

“No…” Tessa is saying, but she isn’t being heard. Things are happening to her; things she can’t stop. Things that are outside her control. She doesn’t want this. She hasn’t chosen this. She can’t deal with this…

“No…!” she tries to say, again, but she feels a hand over her mouth. Then, at her throat.. Trying to defend herself against something — someone? — she somehow, whatever she does, can’t get away from… No matter how hard she tries, she isn’t strong enough.

Waking up is not a gradual coming-to, but a wrenching into present reality. As though Tessa has somehow dragged herself forcibly awake. And, as she becomes conscious, she becomes conscious, too, of the state she is in: covers thrown off of herself, and the bed sheets underneath her are plastered with sweat. Her heart is pounding, her mouth dry. She knows she has cried out, made a noise, betrayed herself.

But no-one, it seems, has heard.

Noah is still sleeping soundly beside her.

_Jeez. That guy could sleep through a nuclear war._

The relief, or something like it, begins to arrive. She’s safe. In a way. But, there’s no getting away from the fact that her nightmares are getting more frequent, and more potent. Somehow, she thinks, they’ve been getting worse, stronger, since meeting Noah. Since having to sleep in his bed.

_Why is that?_

Tessa has been homeless; but she had felt safer sleeping in that whole series of flophouses, parks, parking garages, than she had in her so-called home.

And now? She’s not homeless anymore — very far from it. She is a Newman now, officially, and they are, it seems, kind of a big deal around here. But even with her new name, new family, Tessa feels the cycle repeating.

She had slept better in the jailhouse, than she tends to in this penthouse.

Even if the Newmans are as rich as all hell — and they sure are, Noah squandering more money in a day on stuff he really doesn’t need than Tessa’s entire family of nine used to survive on in a month — Tessa knows she doesn’t need to waste three hundred bucks on her husband’s money on a shrink, in order to figure out why she feels how does.

Living a lie brings its own stresses. Weighs on a person, even if they know dishonesty is the only choice they can make, right here and now. And that will come out, somehow…

Tessa’s tiny bunk in the Big House was, on the other hand, let’s face it: all hers. And it had a curious sense of truth about it, didn’t it? It didn’t have to be shared. It provided her with an honest night’s sleep. Somewhere she felt she actually belonged.

_Somewhere she belonged…_

In the middle of the night, Tessa’s thoughts turn to Mariah. Well; truth is, it doesn’t matter what time of day or night it is, Tessa’s mind is always turning to Mariah.

When was the last really good night’s sleep Tessa had had? It was in that hotel room, with Mariah. The first one, back in Chicago, before all of this Noah Newman stuff; not their more recent night together, right here in Genoa City, when Tessa hadn’t let herself go to sleep in that hotel. As much as she had wanted to curl up and stay with Mariah, hold her all night, at the same time, she knew it was impossible, hopeless… because she had to get back here, before Noah came home, noticed her gone, his wife not waiting for him, and wondered if the spark was out of his marriage already…

_What was she thinking, having sex with Mariah?!_

She wasn’t thinking. Tessa was just doing. Like so often. Not considering the consequences of her actions, just going with gut instinct. That was one thing when it was only her own safety and security she was risking, but right now, Crystal’s wellbeing was on the line. She was in serious danger. The people who had her were not messing around.

And there Tessa was, potentially putting her sister in danger, all because she couldn’t stick to a very simple plan…

 _All you have to do, is keep Noah on the hook_ , Tessa reminds herself, watching her husband shift position slightly in his sleep.

Which you will surely fail at, if Noah finds out about you and Mariah.

She studies Noah’s face. He looks restful, peaceful. Entirely undisturbed by his subconscious. Apparently, utterly unsuspicious about a woman he met in a bar a couple of months ago, a woman whose backstory has maybe been, even Tessa herself has to admit, despite her best efforts, less than consistent. A woman seemed to fall for him so quickly, who takes care to always agree with his opinions and his suggestions; who had seemingly accepted Noah’s proposal in the same spontaneous, impulsive manner in which it had been made.

Tessa feels a little sorry for him. For what she’s doing to him. But she doesn’t have a choice; and Noah will get over it. Won’t he? Over her. He’s rich, he’s privileged, and not just in money but in people. Just look how he grew up… Okay, his parents are divorced — maybe more than once, it’s hard to keep track — but they’re around. They care. He will move on, a little older and wiser, but surely not too damaged. Tessa will just be a footnote in his life. The failed first marriage, after a wedding on a whim. Probably, she thinks, he doesn’t even feel too much for me personally at all. How can he? He doesn’t even know me.

All of this, is probably not even about Tessa herself at all. Which makes sense, and is just as well, as the Tessa she has shown to Noah is not one who has ever really existed.

Noah is just caught up in the romantic aspects that Tessa has been careful to play up, as she was instructed to do. _Don’t worry, he will go for it;_ and they had been right. He has gotten carried away, thinking that he has swept Tessa off her feet, when the truth is she is the one who has very decidedly tipped his life off-balance, off-course; and that was always the plan.

 _You don’t really know me._ Words she had said not to Noah, of course, but to his sister. When they were in bed, and Mariah was saying that totally insane stuff about them running away together…

 _Such a crazy idea that Tessa herself had it too._ Which meant you could bet it was bad news…

But all the same, wanting to say, Mariah, I had the exact same thought…

Mariah offering to help. _And me thinking how much I wanted to take her up on that offer._

Last night, out on Sharon’s porch, Mariah so angry, and Tessa just wanting to — what? Pull Mariah close and kiss her? Tell her all about Crystal and her entire life up until now?

Probably both. Kiss her, steal some car or other from the Newman Ranch garage — which the Newmans probably wouldn’t even miss and only find gone during an annual audit or something — and get the hell out of this damn city.

_Nice fantasy._

She has to focus on what she is meant to be doing. She has to stop thinking about Mariah.

_But how?_

~~~~~~~~

She’s at the railway station, in Chicago. It’s cold: there’s snow on the ground, snow on the platform, snow on the track. There’s an announcement over the public address system that she can’t quite hear, but she knows it is important. She looks up at the board for the train back to Genoa City, and before her eyes, _Delayed_ changes to _Cancelled_.

Last night, Mariah thinks, I was with the most amazing woman. And I don’t need to go anywhere. As of right now, I _can’t_ go anywhere. This storm is keeping me here, but sometimes a person wants, after all, to not have to go anywhere.

Destiny compels me to stay. _So I will._

Tessa won’t go to see whoever it was she was meant to see today. She will never get arrested. She’ll never go to jail. _Maybe, she will never meet Noah…_

“Hey, you!” and it’s her, it’s Tessa, walking down the platform towards her, through falling snow, and she’s radiant as always, even in the dark colors she tends to favor, so tall and beautiful and everything that she is.

I wasn’t ever waiting for a train at all, was I? Mariah realizes...

“You said you had to be somewhere…” Mariah wants to run to her, although she’s a little afraid that she will fall…

“So did you!” Tessa replies. “But it doesn’t matter now.”

And Tessa kisses her, right there in front of everyone on the station platform, like there’s a big, neon _(rainbow?)_ sign above their heads… A deep, intimate kiss, and they don’t need to do anything else right now, Mariah thinks, they could kiss and leave it there for months, or a year, and it wouldn’t matter, her feelings wouldn’t change, it wouldn’t be any different in another season, or however many seasons pass…

And there, again, the announcement Mariah still can’t quite catch…

_Coffee?_

The announcement is about… _coffee?_

“Black, hope that works for you. And we only have instant, no machines here or anything… We don’t have any milk either, so you know, there wasn’t really a choice on that either… You know what, I will level with you… Oh, sorry, were you asleep?”

 _Chicago._ The snow. Tessa…? Their, well, the word Mariah in mind, however stupid it is, is _romantic_ , their romantic reunion on the railway platform…

That was… all just a dream??

_Seriously…?_

Lindsay smiles in the cheerful way she has, as she sets the mug down on the bedside table next to Mariah.

_Is this real life, or a high school creative writing exam??_

“Sorry, sleepyhead. Thought you woke up when I got up. I was just saying, I’m honestly surprised that we have coffee at all. That’s pretty organized, more than usual, truth be told. You can thank my roommate.”

Right. I’m at… Lindsay’s place. I am… in Lindsay’s bed… So, last night…?

“Uh… Really, I am just grateful for caffeine, however it comes right now,” Mariah tells Lindsay, slowly, and with what sound to her like unnatural pauses in her own speech.

And it’s true. The present pounding in Mariah’s skull is, she can tell, not conducive to regular human communication, and the need for coffee is more urgent than usual. _And that tends to be pretty damn urgent._

_I am at Lindsay’s place, I am, uh… wearing, what is this, some old band T-shirt I don’t recognize and… otherwise nothing at all… and clearly we wound up here. And then…?_

“So, last night, huh?” Mariah tries, sipping the coffee.

The fact is, right now, she can’t recollect anything that happened last night after they got to Lindsay’s bedroom.

And really, the whole couple of hours before that are fairly hazy, if she’s honest.

So she is now really hoping one of them remembers enough to fill in the gaps…

“Don’t worry,” Lindsay tells her immediately, her smile intact, as she sits on the edge of the bed.

“Worry?” Mariah looks at Lindsay over the top of the mug.

“About last night.”

“I wasn’t, uh… Yeah, okay. I was, maybe, a little, kind of… just… mulling over. Not worrying, per se.”

_Don’t you need something to mull over, by definition? You can’t mull over… well, a blank space..._

“ _Nothing_ happened last night. Oh, apart from, your mom is a great cook, your brother has truly delightful manners, and I had a fun evening. We got back here, we made out a bit… and went to sleep. That’s all.”

“Really…?”

Lindsay raises her eyebrows. “Oh trust me, Mariah. If anything more had happened, you’d remember.”

Lindsay’s self-assurance is both fairly disarming, and yet somewhat reassuring, Mariah decides. On a number of levels.

“You were a bit too wasted for... things to go further.” Lindsay shrugs in a relaxed way. “Nice kissing, though, I enjoyed that.”

“Too wasted…?”

“Well, when a woman says yes… I like it to be a very enthusiastic, informed, well-considered yes,” Lindsay says. “Of course. Unimpeded by substances.”

“Of… course,” Mariah says.

Something in what Lindsay is saying is bothering her slightly. Not because of Lindsay herself, that’s not it… honestly, she admires how Lindsay really doesn’t let the flirtation drop, not for a moment. There are, unlike with Tessa, no mixed signals here: just a very clear, steady green light. If Mariah has things right.

_What is the problem, then?_

She’s been making decisions, she’s been doing things, stuff has been happening… Has it all been exactly, okay?

Mariah wishes the coffee was an Irish one. Just to take the edge off the cold light of day. Just to forget, or not care, how embarrassing she must have been last night. Which, true, she can’t even remember, exactly; but she can feel this discomfort in herself, an uneasiness, about, what? Her behavior? Her decisions? Her judgment, or lack of it…? How she must have —

An orange, black and white cat jumps on the bed.

“Oh yeah. Jonathan Harker, meet Mariah. Mariah, Jonathan Harker.””

“You have a cat,” Mariah observes.

“More like, there is a cat that likes to show up here now and then and get fed. Right, buddy?” Lindsay scratches the cat behind his ear, a gesture of which he is apparently appreciative. “But that’s cats, right?”

“I… don’t have cats,” Mariah says. “Wait. Your cat… is named after the protagonist in Dracula?”

Lindsay raises her eyebrows. “I can see I have an intellectual in my bed. Yes, he is named after the Dracula guy. Don’t ask me why, my ex came up with that name, but it kind of suits him, don’t you think? You’re in the presence of rarity, by the way. He’s a male calico, very unusual.”

The cat climbs onto Mariah’s feet.

“My ex found him in a dumpster. Can you believe that? If I ever catch the person who put him there, I will stick them in a dumpster.”

The cat climbs off of Mariah’s feet.

“You know, that’s fair, Mariah. You do have pretty cold feet. Was like being in bed with a penguin.”

“Ha, well.” Mariah sips more coffee. “I guess as well as giving you pneumonia, I was… um… being extra embarrassing, right? The whole… Tessa.. thing.”

Hadn’t she just babbled about Tessa for hours on end? Stared at her all through dinner? Then got back here and babbled about Tessa again?

“Not at all,” Lindsay says. “We’ve all been hung up on some incredibly beautiful member of the fairer sex before now. Even Jonathan Harker.”

“Ha. Uh… even you?” Mariah asks, of someone who seems, well, very confident, self-assured…

“Oh, definitely including me,” Lindsay tells her. “Absolutely, one hundred per cent me. Teenage lesbian heartbreak. The worst.”

Mariah nods, like she would know anything about that. At that sort of age, she was entirely consumed with the insane cult she had been raised in, most of her romantic life messes ahead of her, but she’s learned that it’s always best to just nod and agree when people make those regular life talking points.

As for right now, she can feel… well. The whole of last night on her, somehow. The drinking, there was a lot of it, again — and, what else?… Smoking, too?

She excuses herself to the bathroom, where Lindsay informs her she apparently has such a thing as a spare towel, and even a spare toothbrush that she can use.

Huh. That’s more organized than the coffee situation. _Maybe Lindsay has a lot of… guests, staying over…?_

Lindsay sure is sure of herself. And she is gay, right??

She had said that last night. Not _fluid_ , or whatever. She doesn’t like men. She _does_ like women. And she’s clear on that whole deal.

Presumably no husbands lurking in the background, although Mariah has found that you never can tell.

_Out. Not hiding, not pretending…_

The plumbing is bizarre even by unfamiliar bathroom standards, and the shower not exactly up to Sharon’s cottage standard, but a blast of hot water applied directly to the skin is so very welcome. Seems to wash away a few sins, or if that can’t be done, at least dispels some doubts. Clear skin, clear mind… kind of.

When Mariah returns, Lindsay has opened the bedroom window to hang out of it and smoke something that isn’t legal in Wisconsin again.

The cat is in her lap, and she is singing a song to him. It sounds like it’s called “Little F***er”, if the lyrics are anything to go by. But it’s sung very affectionately, and Jonathan Harker seems to be quite enjoying it.

 _I mean, she’s no Tessa Porter… Newman… when it comes to singing, or musical composition…_ but it’s the same thought as Mariah had had last night. Not being Tessa Porter is really working for Lindsay… whatever her surname is _(note to self, Mariah thinks, do find that out)_ right now.

“Uh… I wouldn’t want you thinking I did this all the time,” Lindsay says, gesturing to the joint. “But hey, it’s my day off.”

It’s Mariah’s, too.

_And she can’t spend the entirety of it thinking about Tessa Porter, can she?_

“Well, I told you,” Lindsay reminds her. “I had a suggestion on that.”

~~~~~~~~

Things not to think about when in bed with your husband? Fairly near the top of the list has to be the last time you were in bed with his sister.

In that hotel room on the other side of town, Tessa knowing she couldn’t relax, certainly couldn’t let herself fall asleep. _She had to get back to Noah’s place…_

Right, it wasn’t _Noah’s_ place. She shouldn’t think of it that way, in case she slipped up and _talked_ about it that way too. The fancy apartment was _their_ place… where she and Noah lived together now. It was the other side of town, and Noah’s conference call couldn’t last all night...

So, that meant Tessa really had to avoid getting too cozy. She couldn’t let herself doze off. She had to get out of bed. She really did have to go.

But that was easier said than done when the most beautiful woman she knows is lying next to her. And when Mariah’s body against Tessa’s own feels so good, so natural. Like they…

… well, it’s a dumb thing to think at all, but really, even dumber given the circumstances, the situation, how impossible everything is.

So don’t think it, Tessa tells herself…

_… like they belong together._

Sigh. It seems she can’t help but have this kind of idiotic stuff running through her mind whenever Mariah is around.

Although, is it such a crazy thought…? Given the fact that they had just made love again…

 _Made love._ Would you ever listen to yourself…

That sort of thought.

_Dumb._

Mariah reaches for her, interlocks her fingers with Tessa’s own.

Damn. _That is really nice…_

“What was jail like?”

That? That’s how Mariah is. Sudden thoughts, and questions. Out of the blue. (Later, Tessa will learn, assumptions and accusations fly right out too…)

This woman hasn’t got much of a filter. But Tessa is glad of the interruption to her inner monologue, as provided by Mariah’s random moment of curiosity.

“Oh, you know,” she shrugs. Moves one of her warm feet over one of Mariah’s absurdly cold ones, for all the good it will do. “It was… as you’d expect. A lot of locked doors, bars on the windows and that sort of thing. Honestly? Boring, for the most part.”

“I wish I’d —“ Tessa sees Mariah stop herself from saying whatever she was about to. “I’m sorry you had to go through that,” is what she goes for.

“I’ve survived worse,” Tessa tells her, without thinking, and now sees the expression on Mariah’s face in response.

 _Worse than jail?_ Mariah’s look asks.

“I mean it was... not that bad. Not, you know, all the drama, not like you see on TV,” Tessa says quickly, before Mariah starts asking questions.

“Not very _Orange is the New Black_ then?” Mariah’s tone is hard to read.

Mariah wants to know what she had meant, Tessa is sure, by:

_I’ve survived worse._

“Orange? What?” Tessa makes her face assume a puzzled expression.

“How…? The new…? Makes no sense. You can never replace black. I _love_ black. Sometimes I think I would have a whole wardrobe of just black.”

“No kidding...” Mariah smiles. “But I mean, the TV show.”

“Oh. Haven’t seen it,” Tessa shrugs.

Mariah nearly sits up in the bed. “Oh my god, you haven’t? Well you totally have to watch it, I mean, providing all the being locked up stuff isn’t, too, you know, remindery. We should —“

Mariah stops herself.

“ _You_ , should.” In correcting herself, she has become much less animated. “You should... check it out sometime.”

 _You_. Not _we_.

Because they won’t ever be snuggled up on the sofa, binge watching television together, will they?

(That hurts a little, does it? You want to play house with this girl? _She going to domesticate a feral animal like you…?_

That it?

 _You’re utterly absurd_ , and you’re going to let Crystal down again if you carry on like this.

And you can’t let her down.

_Not again…_

Keep it all light. _This isn’t real..._ )

Tessa turns, extricates her fingers from Mariah’s own, and rests her elbow on the bed, and her hand on her chin. She assumes a mock-thoughtful expression.

“Hmm… Let me guess one or two of the plot twists on this show: I am thinking… some of the inmates hook up with each other.”

“Well... yes.” Mariah’s cheeks are turning a little pink. “Why...? Was that... what it was like? In there?”

Wait, is she _jealous_?

_Of my non-existent, didn’t happen, I really didn’t even consider it, incarcerated hookups??_

“In jail?” Tessa nods. “Oh sure, yeah, it was non-stop hot lesbian action.”

Mariah is either blushing or furious; or maybe a little of both. “… _Really_?”

“Ha. No. Not at all. Since you ask.” Tessa smiles, leans in, kisses a troubled-looking Mariah lightly. Runs her fingers along Mariah’s shoulder, watches the other woman tremble just slightly at her touch.

“I was thinking more, about your taste in entertainment, you know, based on our previous conversations.”

“My taste?” Mariah glances down at Tessa’s lips. A subconscious movement, Tessa assumes.

“I mean... it does seem to lean in that sort of, girl-on-girl direction…”

“I... when have we talked about...? — I… I just like a good story, okay?”

Tessa now determines that Mariah is flustered. And a flustered Mariah is a truly adorable thing. Tessa kisses her again, a little more seriously.

“Well, I’ll give it a go, if you like it,” she says, and she has to admit she enjoys the effect of those words, her low tone, on Mariah’s bearing and look.

“Oh,” Mariah says. There is a pause.

“There might be too much... you know. Loss of liberty, and lack of happy endings, and... those sorts of themes,” Mariah says, at last.

“I think I can handle what does or doesn’t happen on a TV show,” Tessa tells her.

“You can? But what happens if you get _really invested_?”

“Ah. Well, now. You’re just opening yourself up to a whole world of heartbreak like that…”

_Wait… are they still talking about a TV show?_

As it happens, in the next moment they’re not talking at all, because Mariah is kissing Tessa in that sudden, urgent way she has, and Tessa is matching her, meeting Mariah’s desire with her own.

“I don’t want to hurt Noah,” Mariah says, at some point, in the middle of things.

Is it the time to say it? Shouldn’t this be the topic of conversation somewhere other than this, some other time?

Perhaps, but this is where they are.

“Neither do I,” Tessa says.

And that is true. She doesn’t. After all, Noah doesn’t _need_ to get hurt for her plan to work; it wasn’t one of the objectives she was set.

But having agreed not hurting Noah is a mutual goal, neither of them stops what they are doing, also mutually…

And does Mariah know already, then, that Tessa’s feelings for her brother can’t be real, however much Tessa will lie directly to Mariah’s face that they are — for Crystal’s sake, because she has been told to, because she has to, for all those reasons — given she is not only ready, and willing to be, but, evidently extremely enjoying being with his sister this way…?

The following night, at the dinner, Mariah will be furious with her, having somehow, in the meantime _(that Lindsay girl in her ear?)_ connected some of the dots; seen through some of the act and saying so, but tonight, if she guesses, she doesn’t say.

Mariah moves on top like so often, Tessa is letting her feel like she is in charge, because it seems that’s what Mariah needs — again, more often than not. But there’s a moment where Tessa suddenly knows she wants to make Mariah feel good, and how.

 _Let me._ Mariah’s breasts, full, heavy, perfect, in Tessa’s mouth, the noises Mariah makes when Tessa takes each of them between her lips; and the kisses and caresses down Mariah’s body, until Tessa can taste her _there_ , that sweet beautiful essence of her that she’s missed so much, like every bit of Mariah.

Hey, let me… _You know how good you taste…?_ Mariah definitely blushing, or flushed, now. Not angry, not accusing Tessa of anything other than being _good at this_ , and saying yes, lifting up her hips. Tessa thinking, _you always want to be in charge_ , but this is something I know, this is something I want to do for you. _Has anyone else done it for you the way I do…? Let me…?_

Mariah _more than_ letting her. Her look back, to Tessa’s look up at her, answering: _no_ , Tessa, _no-one has done it like that, to me, for me, and maybe that’s part of the reason I’m here… okay to admit that?_

That very special feelings can be physical ones? Or the physical can be so emotional...? Maybe she would have a music career if she knew how to express this. Tessa knows that this is true, and she’s glad to have passed that insight on to someone else, to Mariah specifically, which she feels she has. It’s as though, not to be too self-important… _Mariah didn’t know this before…?_

And then Tessa sees the questions Mariah has, about this, about her: ones that she doesn’t quite say aloud, but Tessa feels them in the arches of Mariah’s body, in the look in her eyes, the… information requests. For data such as:

_How many women, Tessa? More than the men?_

Not more in _numbers_ , Mariah, no; if those are the measures you use, if that is how you do the math. Which, and well, math was never her strong point, but Tessa is clear on this: numbers aren’t what counts, at all.

Mariah saying Tessa’s name, once, when Tessa puts her tongue on her, means more, matters more, than a dozen nights with anyone else. Or, more to the point, it’s not an equation that can ever properly be balanced: with Mariah on one side, it is clear that anyone at all on the other, or everyone else on the other, all the people, men, women… and all the times, and, hell, why not, throw in anyone ever Tessa might ever meet in the future — they can’t, they don’t, measure up. They can’t ever be made to mean the same.

Mariah saying her name, the second time, when Tessa runs her tongue along that line... _The one where Mariah comes undone._ Moving up, where Tessa puts her mouth and the way she does this: more targeted, more serious, more concerted, up, down, so that she gives those flashes of pleasure, but so too, there is more to taste on her tongue as it is spilling out from Mariah now. Mariah slick and wanting her and needing this, Mariah gasping against her. Tessa’s hands on Mariah’s hips, as she gives the other woman what she needs.

If she wants to count anything? — Tessa will count how many times in succession, she can bring Mariah up, and up, to that high point of true pleasure like this…

~~~~~~~~

Tessa realizes she wants to touch herself, thinking about how she had been with Mariah; _but it really would be pushing it_ , to try that with Noah in the bed. God, what is happening to her?

She knows she’s wet from indulging in the memory, though…

Not thinking about Mariah? Yeah.

_That’s going really well._

But everything is distorted at this hour of the morning, right? Tessa’s not normally awake at this time; not unless she has been up all night partying. Or working on a song.

_Or she has been arrested in a dawn raid._

She should settle, again. Get more rest.

But, she doesn’t feel tired. She smooths the bed sheets back into some kind of order, watches the gentle rise and fall of Noah’s chest. He doesn’t look like someone who has nightmares, but then again, you should never judge a book by its cover; never judge what’s in someone’s heart by what they show on their face.

Maybe she should check her messages? Perhaps there’s something from Crystal.

Or maybe from Mariah.

Tessa rolls her eyes at herself.

_You’re real, real bad at this…_

Noah is still sleeping soundly alongside her; now with one arm thrown over the covers, the other over Tessa’s body. She slides Noah’s touch away from herself carefully, and reaches for her phone on the bedside table.

No notifications. Nothing. No messages or calls at all.

She puts it back.

Then, something makes her pick it up again.

It’s Thursday, her phone tells her.

A realization dawns, even as the sun will remain beneath the skyline for some hours yet.

Tessa has a sudden mental image of the packet of pills in the bathroom, the ones marked with Mon, Tue... The ones that are really quite important.

When, exactly, was the last time she took one?

Before I was with Mariah. Which was not last night, but the night before. And since then… ?

Well. She has been experiencing some lapses in concentration. The thinking about Mariah. Non-stop.

When they were in bed. When she had to leave her. And then all day, and all evening at that dinner. And last night, all last night, after she got home.

When she was with Noah.

Tessa wasn’t entirely sure the dinner had gone to plan in the end. Hadn’t Sharon, at least, noticed she had spent too long outside talking to Mariah? Hadn’t someone caught on that that Lindsay girl was needling her _(didn’t Mariah at least notice that??)_

But Noah had thought the evening went well. When they got home he was… attentive. He wanted to be close to her… And she had to go along with it. What choice did she have?

There are certain precautions many married couples don’t take, and they didn’t take them.

But there are others, that she herself is meant to be taking, at her own initiative…

Tessa carefully slides out of bed. Noah barely moves in response.

She walks as quietly as she can to the bathroom, finds the box.

The last pill she took, she can see, was Monday.

_Fuck._

Well. Tessa now knows she’ll need to go get another type of pill today, otherwise that plan to hook a Newman might go further than she had anticipated.

They haven’t discussed children, as such, although Tessa is sure Noah wants them. Well, he can still have them, of course. With his second wife, or, his _third_. He is a Newman, after all; he will probably marry the same woman a few times, but it won’t be Tessa, and she won’t be tied to him for the rest of her life. _Not in any way at all._

She will make sure of that.

_How can she have forgotten…?_

She knows how.

Even last night, with Noah, her mind had been somewhere else. With someone else. She had been thinking of Mariah. Of course. _As always._

She knows she can give Noah no reason to doubt her. Even a whirlwind wedding needs to be followed by a honeymoon period.

So last night, against her instincts, but as a calculated choice, she had taken the lead in bed. In part, lest Noah think her less than enthusiastic about being with him; but also to ensure more control; to make sure they do things the way that is more tolerable for her, at least.

It is impossible for her to really enjoy this man. Or _any man_ , Tessa is fairly sure these days; although she doesn’t voice aloud the conclusion she has reached on that account, even to herself, not yet. A realization she has reached not, of course, because of the men who have treated her badly. That’s not why she is the way she is (and she’s certain that it’s a way she is like the way she is tall, or the way she has long fingers, or the way she’s always in the middle of writing a song and always disappointed in it); _that’s not the reason…_

She _has_ to be with Noah, that’s how the dice have fallen; and so she _is_ with him. All the ways a wife is meant to be with a husband.

But all the while, she is imagining, wishing, _fantasizing_ , that it’s Noah’s sister sitting next to her at Sharon’s dinner table; Mariah driving her home, to hell, yes, _their_ home. That it’s Mariah she can be in bed with, even if it’s somewhere a lot less salubrious than this place of Noah’s. Even if it’s not even as nice as those hotel rooms, Tessa decides. She thinks she could maybe even be happy in some shoebox of an apartment, if she is with Mariah. Imagining, wishing, _fantasizing_ being herself in a much crappier living situation with non-heiress Mariah Copeland, instead of being a Newman in a place like this.

Imagining, wishing, _fantasizing_ that it’s Mariah she’s kissing, Mariah she’s moving into position for, Mariah who is the one is taking her that way. That deep.

_(There are ways…)_

Yeah. That is the kind of thing that has been on her mind. Instead of the reality of what she’s been doing, of what could happen due to her not thinking things through, _yet again_.

Tessa scrolls through the apps in her phone to order a taxi to the furthest pharmacy in the city limits, and hurries, as quietly as she can, to get ready, dress and leave the apartment, and leave Noah to his peaceful, untroubled sleep.

But even as she should be thinking of the more immediately pressing problem, she is thinking how she has to clear the air with Mariah. In the back of cab, wending its way around the city, she stares at her phone; spends too long on what ends up being the simplest of apologies. Suggests they meet.

And this time, don’t have sex with her, she tells herself.

Especially not the life-ruiningly good kind.

_Think you can manage that?_

~~~~~~~~

Mariah has to find a way to stop thinking about Tessa.

What’s the answer?

Maybe it’s temporary. Maybe it’s expedient. It’s herself, in just a towel, sitting astride Lindsay, and finally taking Lindsay up on that offer she’s been making.

Maybe it wouldn’t have happened this way. Maybe there was still a chance to change things. Maybe even that night before, this next morning? — things might have changed course...

Maybe it’s Tessa’s text, and Mariah thinking, how has the woman got the audacity, the gall, the sheer _nerve_ to text her looking for what —? A cozy chat like, like... Like they’re book club friends, and she wants to talk about the latest little _snafu_ in marital relations with whatever goddamn country club-attending-boring-as-hell-husband?! Like they’re going to sit over a coffee and compare notes about their lives, like they’re not two people who— who have— 

Mariah closes her eyes, rapidly plays a montage of images from hotel rooms. Of their previous “cozy chats.” Of how it feels at the edge of the night when they’ve been together.

How Tessa has clearly no intention of doing anything other than staying with Noah. How she’s slept with Mariah a couple of times, fine, but Noah is the one she’s married to, out in public with.

The one who matters.

You know what? Maybe she _is_ after his money. She’d put her own money on Sharon and Nick figuring that out, if so. Maybe Tessa _is_ in love with Noah _(wait, why does that feel worse than if she is scamming him, Mariah...?)_

But it really doesn’t matter, either way, does it?

Fact is, Noah is Tessa’s husband. And Mariah, what is she? A bit of fun, a woman having her first lesbian experience and taking it all too seriously. A one-night, two-night stand who clung on to a good time between the sheets, that _bit too hard_.

“I mean… it sounds like you’re being a _little_ hard on yourself…” Lindsay says.

_I don’t know what your game is, exactly... but I’m not going to let you play me anymore._

Mariah’s angry speed-tapping of this reply, the furious firing off it via a stab of the Send button, has Lindsay raising her eyebrows.

“Um… You good?” she asks.

“All good,” Mariah says, throwing her phone over her shoulder, to land, well, somewhere in Lindsay’s room.

“Oh”, Mariah looks behind her quickly as the possible consequences of her flash of anger. There had been a telling cracking sound of the phone making impact with something. Probably another phone screen she will need to replace, but also… “God, I, uh, didn’t hit the cat, did I?”

“He ducked,” Lindsay tells her. “Good reflexes.” She pauses. “You know, Mariah… you and Tessa…”

“There isn’t any me and Tessa.”

Lindsay does a form of salute and puts the joint out. “Right? I was gonna say… she’s out there, living her life. You should live yours.” She stands up, presses her hands together as if to signal readiness to get on with something.

“Now, how do you like your eggs? Okay, just to manage expectations here, I will level with you, maybe we don’t have any eggs. Come to think of it, I have a feeling we maybe don’t even have the frying pan anymore, I kind of think maybe we maybe used it for —”

Maybe, finally, it’s thinking of how Tessa must have been with Noah. 

The things she must have done with him.

The things she must have been doing _last night._

“What are you going on about?” Mariah snaps.

“Breakfast...” Lindsay is saying, but Mariah is already moving towards her, pushing Lindsay backwards down onto her own bed.

“Oh,” Lindsay says. “Okay.”

“Shut up about breakfast,” Mariah tells her.

_I wish I was drunk. Or high. Or both. This would be easier. What I’m saying. What I think I’m about to do._

“We… we had this conversation, right? Where I say I need to get my mind off of Tessa? And you say, that’s okay?”

Lindsay nods. “I feel like we covered that, in detail. Although, it never hurts to be clear about, you know, what’s happening so… Let’s do a little recap. Am I okay with a _scintillatingly_ hot girl using me to try and cheer herself up...?” She smiles. “Hmm. Yes. I am enthusiastically consenting.”

“ _Using_ … you?” Mariah hears her own voice, the wavering in it.

Is she shocked at that idea?

Or… is she _something else?_

“Well... You’re… very direct,” Mariah adds, after a moment.

“Oh, I can be _even more direct_ than that,” Lindsay replies. “If that’s what you want.”

_Take my mind off of Tessa._

Please.

“Yes,” Mariah says.

~~~~~~~~

In the back of the cab, on her way to fix another one of her fuck-ups, Tessa is doing her best to clear her head and refocus.

She will speak to Mariah. She will sort that all out, somehow.

She has to finish what she started. The plan, as it was explained to Tessa, was to get seriously involved with Victor Newman’s grandson.

Not seriously involved with his… whatever relation Mariah is. Step-granddaughter?

_Something like that._

A thought occurs to her. If she wasn’t doing what she was doing… with, to, Noah, then… would she even have ever seen Mariah again?

Would she even be walking free?

 _What was jail like?_ Mariah had asked.

Well, it was like thinking you that you had been forgotten about by pretty much everyone you had ever known, and knowing that, when it came to bringing a case against you, they had you pretty much bang to rights.

She’d been caught, so easily, that day she’d said goodbye to Mariah and gone to do that job with her ex. One of her more stupid decisions, given the whole thing had turned out to be a setup, a sting operation, and she and Alex, her ex, had been arrested the moment they walked through the door…

Tessa had assessed her chances, and they weren’t good. State had witnesses for days, and she was pretty sure she had no chance of seeing daylight for years.

That’s what jail is like.

Until one day, a couple of months in, hope receding, you get told you have a new lawyer, and they’ve showed up at the jail to see you.

“Gotta be a mistake,” Tessa had said. “I have the public defender.”

It wasn’t like she had a big lawyer budget. 

Or really any of kind of a lawyer budget.

“Right here.” The guard had pointed to the visitor list in black and white. “On the list for you today. You wanna see him, or not? Take it or leave it.”

The alternative to getting a visit was to take your chances with the daytime TV. Some of the women in the soaps were beautiful, of course, and the frequent frivolousness of the events depicted sometimes provided a welcome distraction; but usually, whoever had control of the remote would prefer to put on the talk shows and the game shows instead. And there was an outside chance she had inherited a huge fortune from a mysterious benefactor, right? Kind of thing that happened in those books Crystal used to read, at least insofar as Tessa had understood the plots from the dust jackets, which tended to be as far as Tessa herself got with great literature, even with all the time on her hands she had on account of having restricted personal liberty...

Of course, there was also a chance that there was a less positive reason some lawyer guy had showed up out of nowhere to talk to her; but the possibilities hadn’t really occurred to her at the time.

Which is to say that Tessa decided to take her chances on talking to whichever lawyer was under the mistaken misapprehension that she had requested new representation.

“Ms… Porter, is it? That the name you’re using now?” The guy in the sharp suit asks, when the door closes after the guard.

“It’s my name,” Tessa says quickly.

“Not the one you were born under, though.”

“Who the hell are you?” Tessa demands, standing up from the table to get a better look at this guy. Does she know him? He doesn’t look familiar, but he already has indicated he has more information about her than she would like anyone to have.

“Oh now. Settle, sweetheart. Just did a few simple background checks, that’s all. Like to know who I am dealing with. No need to get all ‘real’ on me… Who am I? Well, just think of me as your guardian angel. Someone who can help you out of your present predicament.”

“In English,” Tessa snaps, continuing to stand, and leaning on the desk rather than sitting down, putting her guard down in front of whoever the hell this is.

The guy seems amused.

“Relax. I come in peace. Put simply: I can get you of here. All charges dropped. In a matter of days. How does that sound?” he says.

Tessa looks at him, and he must see the change in her expression:

“Thought that might get your attention.”

“What’s the catch….? Are you really even a lawyer?”

_Were they even really police, those two characters who’d showed up last night before dinner…?_

Because sure, she maybe didn’t ever get that high school diploma, but she isn’t dumb.

The catch went like this:

_Meet Noah Newman. Get involved with Noah Newman. Make him like you._

_I am sure you have your ways…_

_Await further instructions._

Note to self, the plan definitely did not involve getting _knocked up_ , for Lord’s sake, you utter idiot. That was going above and beyond.

What else had they said?

_We’ve been watching you. And look out._

_Because we will still be watching._

Tessa has a sudden thought; turns, looks behind the cab; but the road behind is empty. Just like, she sees, the route ahead.

~~~~~~~~

Mariah doesn’t want to compare them. The first woman she has slept with, and the second.

She shouldn’t compare them.

_Right?_

_And I really shouldn’t be comparing them… right in the middle of… proceedings._

But Tessa and Lindsay are the only two frames of lesbian sexual reference Mariah has, and so the comparisons are natural, aren’t they…?

And… well, it is noticeable how different the two of them are, from one another.

Mariah’s spent the best part of the last twenty-four hours in Lindsay’s company, has nowhere she particularly needs to be today, but the sex, finally, when it happens, feels urgent.

It is not the languid… what? Dream? No, Spell? _High…?_ — that being with Tessa is…

Current events are meant to be pushing Tessa out of her head, but, see, Mariah thinks, almost sighing inside (a good sigh or a bad one?), she’s still there.

Even when Lindsay is kissing her, touching her, starts to pleasure her, is inside her… is being, well... pretty direct, just as they agreed…

Lindsay is… Mariah doesn’t know what the right words would be, and she now doubts the reliability of her internet searches on this topic. Dominant doesn’t seem quite right? — a bit too severe. But then again, certainly, she isn’t submissive.

And certainly, too, yes, she did have the right idea that Mariah wanted it done… this way.

Like this, Lindsay bringing her to a climax quickly. Not talking, or not much, just the push and pull against each other, only that. There’s no getting off course in the… getting off. There’s no calling out each other’s names, no dizzying feeling of height, or sensation of falling, no urge to throw her whole life off-balance for this….

No impulse to say, okay, so _this_ is why I was put on this planet, let’s just get in a car and drive, _let’s just get the hell out of here, buy tickets somewhere else on this earth I now see the point of_ , and just go…

_(And what, let Noah and Sharon and Faith and all the rest stay back here in Genoa City, and pick up the pieces of what you’ve done? Selfish. Have you really changed at all?)_

Lindsay’s hot and she knows what she’s doing. Oh, it’s not like Tessa isn’t, and doesn’t — oh no, quite the opposite, very opposite, but these straightforward words are not how Mariah would sum Tessa up, not at all…

( _Tessa would take so much longer to describe…_

 _Oh for god’s sake…_ )

More to the point, Mariah tells herself: this doesn’t feel crazy, not at all. Today, this, what they’re doing? — It makes perfect sense. It was a very free and conscious and rational choice.

And that’s good, right?

It’s not that Mariah likes the _chaos_ , the chaos that being with Tessa causes. Mariah likes fun, and… she herself _can_ be fun, right? And, although she doesn’t feel she’s ever managed it in her personal relationships before, she can see why people might like things to be uncomplicated, too…

That’s what Lindsay has promised, and she’s delivered. That’s how this feels.

( _Uncomplicated_. A word that could not be applied to Tessa, or what is going on between them. _Just a thought_ ).

(Another thought:

 _I like women_ , Mariah thinks, somewhere in the middle of Lindsay’s quick, effective attentions. I really do. So it’s not just _her_ , not just _Tessa_ …

But that one is too much to be processed, right now).

“That was good,” Mariah says, not meaning to give a review, but reassurance, afterwards, when they lie together.

“Still somewhere else…?” Lindsay asks; but she’s not mad, Mariah thinks. More, curious; trying to work out a puzzle or a mystery. Trying to figure Mariah out…

“Sorry…” Mariah murmurs, all the same.

“Don’t apologize. I have another suggestion,” Lindsay says.

“Well… you’re in luck, because” — _the text, Noah, the marriage, jail, the silence, she went back to him — well, guess what, I don’t just wait around to hear from you, Tessa_ — “I am open. Wide open, to suggestions. And I have all day…” Mariah responds.

~~~~~~~~

The cab finally pulls up outside the pharmacy, and Tessa’s phone buzzes.

For a happy moment, she thinks it is Mariah, that she maybe is saying yes, that she will get to see her later today; in the more panicked and depressing few moments that follow, she thinks Noah must have noticed she has left this morning, without a word.

She wonders what lie she can tell him. It’s not like she has a job, if you don’t count the long con she is running on him, so where can she plausibly say she has gone?

Tessa fishes her phone out of her pocket, unlocks it.

Not Noah. Not Mariah.

_Unknown number._

She opens the text.

“It’s me. You need to come to Chicago. This weekend. C.”

Just like, the issue Tessa needs to sort out on her mission this morning, and just like, for different reasons, whatever is going on with her and Mariah — a trip back to her home city in a couple of days…?

That was not in the plan.

To be continued.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Plan is to update on a more regular basis from now on. Shorter chapters, weekly.
> 
> Thank you for reading!


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